A remarkably small bacterium containing fewer than 500 genes serves as the basis for one of the most detailed digital life ...

The DNA packed inside every human cell contains instructions for life, written in billions of letters of genetic code. Every time a cell divides, the complete code, divided among 46 chromosomes, must ...

Humans and baker's yeast have more in common than meets the eye, including an important mechanism that helps ensure DNA is copied correctly, reports a pair of studies. The findings visualize for the ...

A giant DNA virus pulled from a Japanese freshwater pond is forcing scientists to rethink how complex cells first acquired their defining feature: the nucleus. Named ushikuvirus, the newly ...

By simulating the life cycle of a minimal bacterial cell — from DNA replication to protein translation to metabolism and cell division — scientists have opened a new frontier of computer vision into ...

The story of life’s beginnings gets stranger when you look closely at viruses. These tiny entities seem to sit at the edge of ...

Embryonic stem (ES) cells are pluripotent stem cells that can produce all cell types of an organism. ES cells proliferate rapidly and have been thought to experience high levels of intrinsic ...

DNA replication is a complex process with many moving parts. In baker's yeast, the molecular complex Ctf18-RFC keeps parts of the replication machinery from falling off the DNA strand. Human cells use ...