An illustration of E. coli. Scientists have been racing to shrink the genetic code of this bacterium. Kateryna Kon / Science Photo Library via Getty Images The DNA of nearly all life on Earth is made ...

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 ...

The genetic code is central to life. With minor variations, everything uses the same sets of three DNA bases to encode the same 20 amino acids. We have discovered no major exceptions to this, leading ...

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.

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.

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? "We find ...

Scientists at UC Berkeley have discovered a microbe that bends one of biology’s most sacred rules. Instead of treating a specific three-letter DNA code as a clear “stop” signal, this methane-producing ...