DNA and RNA methylation, initially thought to operate as distinct pathways, have been shown to interact closely, shifting our understanding of gene regulation. A team of researchers from the ...

Nano-tRNAseq is based on nanopore sequencing, a technology that can directly sequence individual RNA molecules by passing them through a small pore. Each of the nucleotides that compose an RNA ...

Dr. Cech is a biochemist and the author of the forthcoming book “The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life’s Deepest Secrets,” from which this essay is adapted. From E=mc² to splitting the atom ...

This image depicts the chemical structure of cytosine. It shows a hexagonal ring with nitrogen atoms at positions 1 and 3, and a primary amine group attached to carbon 4. The two remaining positions ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In 1957, just four years after Francis Crick and other scientists solved the riddle of ...

Thomas Gingeras did not intend to upend basic ideas about how the human body works. In 2012 the geneticist, now at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York State, was one of a few hundred colleagues ...

Many writers grouse when an editor makes a change in a story, but the consequences of changing a single word usually aren’t that dire. Not so with genetic instructions for making proteins. Even a ...

Francesca Storici consults at Tessera Therapeutics. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Your DNA is continually damaged by sources both ...