All living things on Earth use a version of the same genetic code. Every cell makes proteins using the same 20 amino acids. Ribosomes, the protein-making machinery within cells, read the genetic code ...

The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 amino acids. But certain groups of microbes have an expanded genetic code, in ...

In a giant feat of genetic engineering, scientists have created bacteria that make proteins in a radically different way than all natural species do. By Carl Zimmer At the heart of all life is a code.

Influential inventions often combine existing tools in new ways. The iPhone, for instance, amalgamated the telephone, web browser and camera, among many other devices. The same is now possible in gene ...

Genes are the building blocks of life, and the genetic code provides the instructions for the complex processes that make organisms function. But how and why did it come to be the way it is? A recent ...

This circular diagram represents the genetic code, showing how the four nucleotide bases of RNA (adenine [A], cytosine [C], guanine [G], and uracil [U]) form codons that specify amino acids. Each ...

Synthetic bacteria with expanded genetic codes can evolve proteins in the laboratory with enhanced properties using mechanisms that might not be possible with nature's 20 amino acid building blocks.

Most children inherit both their postal code and their genetic code from their parents. But if genetic factors influence where families are able to live and children's health and educational success, ...