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.
In a world first, scientists led by a team from Stanford University have created 16 viable viruses that do not exist in nature and were designed by AI. Their experiment, which is published in Science, could help in the fight ...
The zebra finch is one of the best-studied songbirds and a model for understanding the biology and neuroscience of vocal learning. Now, researchers have produced the first complete genome assembly of the species, revealing ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 6, 2026
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Researchers sequenced the genomes of three medaka, or Japanese rice fish, a common model organism used in biological research, nearly 10 and 20 years ago. While sequencing the genomes was relatively straightforward, assembling ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 4, 2026
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The signals that cells use to switch genes on have remained almost unchanged across 2 billion years of evolution, but the ones used to switch genes off vary dramatically from one branch of life to another, according to a ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 3, 2026
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102
When a virus enters a cell, its top priority is to replicate its genome rapidly, creating new viruses to infect elsewhere. The host has the opposite priority: to destroy the virus, ideally before it can do any harm. Biology ...
Poxviruses have a long history in human disease as well as medicine: The first-ever vaccine was developed to protect against smallpox, which has since been eradicated. Despite this, scientists still don't fully understand ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 30, 2026
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UC Berkeley researchers have identified regions of DNA that humans inherited from two unknown ancestors as a result of long-ago interbreeding among modern humans and at least four other archaic human relatives.
Evolution
Jul 30, 2026
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Analyzing ancient DNA from more than 500 mammoth bones, an international team of researchers found that Ice Age humans selectively targeted female woolly mammoths. The results of the study, published in Current Biology, show ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jul 30, 2026
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86
Spliceosomal introns are noncoding DNA sequences located between exons in many eukaryotic protein-coding genes. Most are removed post-transcriptionally by RNA splicing and do not encode proteins, but they have been implicated ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 23, 2026
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Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have developed a new way to add large pieces of genetic information to plants, overcoming a challenge that has limited plant biotechnology for decades. ...
Biotechnology
Jul 22, 2026
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