In a new study, published in Cell, researchers describe a newfound mechanism for creating proteins in a giant DNA virus, comparable to a mechanism in eukaryotic cells. The finding challenges the dogma ...

Genetics tools have advanced significantly in recent decades, and have allowed scientist to sequence all of the genetic ...

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

A newly isolated giant virus shows bizarre features inside infected cells, and its unusual structure hints at deeper ...

The story of how life began on Earth grows even more intriguing when viruses enter the picture. These microscopic particles are thought to have ...

Innovations in imaging and genetic engineering are coming together to probe the biophysics of cytoplasm inside living animals.

For decades, biology textbooks have drawn a firm line: viruses are not alive. They lack the machinery to reproduce on their own, they carry no metabolism, and they depend entirely on host cells to ...

Researchers Gregory Goldman, Gregory Fournier, and Betul Kacar have identified a rare class of ancient gene families, called ...

Most people alive today carry fragments of Neanderthal DNA in their genome. Now scientists are gaining a more intimate ...

Researchers at the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology have uncovered new evidence that two major types of gene-controlling DNA sequences, promoters and enhancers, operate with a shared ...

For many years, researchers believed that the DNA inside a newly fertilized egg began as a structural ‘blank slate’ – a loose ...