In this AI-generated illustration of Earth at the dawn of life, a distant volcano towers over shallow pools of water. It is possible the earliest life forms evolved in such environments. Credit: ...

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? A recent ...

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 ...

Scientists on their quest to find the origin of life have stared into the primordial soup, trying to answer the ultimate ...

Mutations are changes in the molecular "letters" that make up the DNA code, the blueprint for all living cells. Some of these changes can have little effect, but others can lead to diseases, including ...

A group of scientists at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center has revealed a new genetic code that acts like a cancer ringleader, recruiting and deploying a gang of tumor cells to incite a ...

A new theory that explains why the language of our genes is more complex than it needs to be also suggests that the primordial soup where life began on earth was hot and not cold, as many scientists ...