To help answer one of the great existential questions—how did life begin?—a new study combines biological and cosmological models. Professor Tomonori Totani from the Department of Astronomy looked at how life's building ...
Astrobiology
Mar 5, 2020
9
1909
A new protein called KHNYN has been identified as a missing piece in a natural antiviral system that kills viruses by targeting a specific pattern in viral genomes, according to new findings published today in eLife. Studying ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 9, 2019
0
205
In a study published in Nature on June 10, researchers from Dr. Yang Hui's Lab at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and collaborators from the CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational ...
Biotechnology
Jun 10, 2019
2
147
The message of life is encoded in our genomic DNA through transcription of messenger RNAs and translation of proteins to perform cellular functions. To ensure accurate transcription—a process that transcribes genomic DNA ...
Materials Science
Apr 3, 2019
0
81
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short noncoding regulatory RNAs that can repress gene expression post-transcriptionally and are therefore increasingly used as biomarkers of disease. Detecting miRNAs can be arduous and expensive as ...
Just like the mythical creation stories that depict the formation of the world as the story of order from chaos, the early Earth was home to a chaotic clutter of organic molecules from which, somehow, more complex biological ...
Astrobiology
Feb 6, 2019
2
299
A single process for how a group of molecules called nucleotides were made on the early Earth, before life began, has been suggested by a UCL-led team of researchers.
Biochemistry
May 19, 2017
12
1036
The original recipe for gene soup may have been simple—rain, a jumble of common molecules, warm sunshine, and nighttime cooling. Then add a pinch of thickener.
Biochemistry
Oct 10, 2016
19
294
A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) offers a twist on a popular theory for how life on Earth began about four billion years ago.
Biochemistry
Sep 28, 2016
88
2296
Using powerful advances in imaging technology, researchers at Yale University have visualized a key component deep within the ribosome, the tiny cellular factory that produces nearly all the proteins essential for life.
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 10, 2015
0
21
