Genomes, as physical systems, comprise the complete set of nucleic acid molecules (typically DNA, or RNA in some viruses) that encode the hereditary information of an organism, including all chromosomes and extrachromosomal genetic elements. They are organized into linear or circular polymers of nucleotides, with specific higher-order structures such as chromatin in eukaryotes or nucleoid organization in prokaryotes. At the physical level, genomes exhibit defined sequence composition, length, and structural features (e.g., replication origins, regulatory regions, repetitive elements) that collectively determine their stability, replication dynamics, mutational patterns, and interactions with cellular molecular machinery.
New findings, published in Nature, help answer the riddle of how vertebrates evolved the diverse array of brain cells that distinguishes them from other animals. It appears that a dramatic expansion of the genetic toolkit ...
Evolution
Jun 10, 2026
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All cells in animals, plants, fungi, and protists share a fundamental characteristic: they are eukaryotic cells—complex cells with specialized internal compartments. The cells that make up our bodies are no exception.
Evolution
Jun 10, 2026
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Sloths are the slowest mammals on the planet, but living in dense jungles has made them notoriously difficult to study. For the first time, scientists have now sequenced and analyzed the two-toed sloth genome and revealed ...
Evolution
Jun 9, 2026
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Scientists in Japan have developed a rat-mouse hybrid embryo from a single frozen rat chromosome transplanted into a mouse egg cell. The achievement is proof that genetic material can sometimes remain functional after cryopreservation ...
A study, published in the journal Development, is the first to precisely map endogenous UTY occupancy across the human genome and demonstrate that UTY remains functionally involved in transcriptional regulation during early ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 8, 2026
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A major goal of modern crop breeding is to efficiently combine multiple desirable traits by "stacking" the favorable gene variants (alleles) that contribute to those traits in a single crop variety. However, current strategies ...
Biotechnology
Jun 7, 2026
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In each cell of your body, DNA is stored in structures called chromosomes. When cells divide, these chromosomes are copied, but over time, the copying process degrades. After many cycles of making copies, the ends of the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 4, 2026
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Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that little-studied DNA structures play a central role in organizing the human genome and controlling gene activity, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 4, 2026
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Scientists from six Asian countries have launched an ambitious 10-year effort to build synthetic cells from non-living molecules, marking the region's first coordinated push to create an artificial single-celled biological ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 1, 2026
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40
The humble Y chromosome may be the smallest chromosome in the mammalian genome (and getting even smaller), but it is mighty: Genes on the Y chromosome are critical for fertility in males. In a new study in the journal Current ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 1, 2026
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