Among the many marvels of life is the cell's ability to divide and thus enable organisms to grow and renew themselves. For this, the cell must duplicate its DNA—its genome—and segregate it equally ...

As the cell proceeds through the stages of cell division (from left to right: interphase, prometaphase, metaphase, and anaphase), chromosomes become progressively more compact through a combination of ...

For sexual reproduction to yield healthy offspring, newly generated oocytes—immature egg cells—must receive the correct amount of DNA after cell division. This process of segregating chromosomes ...

Many of us are familiar with typical diagrams of a chromosome, which is sometimes depicted like a stubby X. While that picture may resemble what is seen after some chromosome staining methods, in the ...

A new University of Utah-led study has discovered the mechanism behind a decades-old evolutionary mystery-how "selfish chromosomes" cheat the rules of genetic inheritance.

A remarkably small bacterium containing fewer than 500 genes serves as the basis for one of the most detailed digital life ...

Cancer cells with extra chromosomes depend on those chromosomes for tumor growth, a new study reveals, and eliminating them prevents the cells from forming tumors. The findings, said the researchers, ...

Scientists have provided an explanation of how chromosomes undergo structural changes during cell differentiation. The human genome is made up of 46 chromosomes, each of which has a length of about ...

When closely related species mate, their offspring sometimes survive but cannot reproduce. This pattern often affects males ...

In the 1960s, doctors counting the number of chromosomes in human white blood cells noticed a strange phenomenon. Frequently—and more frequently with age—the cells would be missing the Y chromosome.

Most mammals, including humans, have two sex chromosomes, X and Y. One sex chromosome is usually inherited from each parent, and they pair up as either XX or XY in every cell of the body. People with ...