Chemists at UCL have shown how two of biology’s most fundamental ingredients, RNA (ribonucleic acid) and amino acids, could have spontaneously joined together at the origin of life four billion years ...

The question of how life could have emerged is one of the most long-standing mysteries in science. In a new study, the laboratory of LMU Professor Dieter Braun has uncovered an unexpected form of ...

The cells in living organisms are constantly making proteins. Ribosomes, the RNA-protein complexes that make other proteins, ...

Scientists may have discovered a reaction that provides the “missing link” to help explain how early life formed on Earth about 4 billion years ago. All living things contain ribonucleic acid, ...

While humans have an esthetic liking for symmetry in everything, nature prefers asymmetric, single-handed forms when it comes to amino acids—the building blocks of proteins, and, by extension, all ...

Transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) is a type of RNA molecule that helps decode a messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence into a protein. tRNAs function at specific sites in the ribosome during translation, which ...

If nonliving materials can produce rich, organized mixtures of organic molecules, then the traditional signs we use to ...

DNA is the poster child for high-specificity binding. As long as their base sequences match, two complementary strands of DNA can navigate through a sea of biomolecules, find each other, and hold fast ...