The same amino acid can be encoded by anywhere from one to six different strings of letters in the genetic code. Andrzej Wojcicki/Science Photo Library via Getty Images Nearly all life, from bacteria ...

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 ...

Scientists at USC have definitively demonstrated that large sets of variations in the genetic code that do not individually appear to have much effect can collectively produce significant changes in ...

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 ...

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 a set of instructions that direct the translation of DNA into 20 amino acids, the basic units of proteins in living cells. The genetic code is made up of codons, which are ...

Despite awe-inspiring diversity, nearly every lifeform – from bacteria to blue whales – shares the same genetic code. How and when this code came about has been the subject of much scientific ...

A four-letter alphabet might seem limited, but it’s all nature needed to write the instructions for all life on the planet. News that researchers have added four letters to the genetic alphabet opens ...

As wildly diverse as life on Earth is—whether it’s a jaguar hunting down a deer in the Amazon, an orchid vine spiraling around a tree in the Congo, primitive cells growing in boiling hot springs in ...

MAKING a living thing is no mean feat, what with the billions of components that need putting together. Nature manages it with one molecule: deoxyribonucleic acid, better known as DNA. It is the ...