A routine experiment with a new single-cell DNA sequencing method turned into a surprising scientific twist when researchers stumbled upon a bizarre genetic code in a microscopic pond organism.

For decades, biologists have known that the instructions for life are written in DNA, yet the vast majority of those letters seemed to sit in the dark, doing little that was obvious. Now a new ...

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.

Origins of the code: University of Illinois researchers found that the genetic code’s origins are tied to dipeptide composition, offering clues to life’s earliest evolution. Beyond coding DNA: Most ...

While the central dogma of molecular biology outlines the linear flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA to proteins (black lines), glycomics introduces a “3rd code of life”—glycans—that operates ...