Bacteria that live in the digestive tracts of animals may influence the adaptive trajectories of their hosts.

A newly minted PhD finds a 150-billion-base-pair-long DNA molecule in a plant.

By Jeffrey M. Perkel Surpassing the Law of Averages How to expose the behaviors of genes, RNA, proteins, and metabolites in single cells. By necessity or convenience, almost everything we know about biochemistry and molecular biology derives from bulk behavior: From gene regulation to Michaelis-Menten kinetics, we understand biology in terms of what the “average” cell in a population does. But, as Jonathan Weissman of the University of Califo

Scientists are using video games to tap the collective intelligence of people around the world, while doctors and educators are turning to games to treat and teach.

Photo: Ori Fragman, Hebrew University Hordeum spontaneum, the plant studied for BARE-1 retroelements. With genome sequences arriving almost as regularly as the morning paper, the public's attention is focused on genes--new genes to protect crops against pests; rogue genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics; faulty genes that, if fixed, could cure diseases such as muscular dystrophy. What many people don't realize is that genes account for only part of an organism's DNA, and in many c

Investment Author:Holly Ahern If you were to ask several life scientists to name a particular biochemical product that they simply could not do without, you'd probably get a myriad of answers that would mirror the research interests of the group you questioned. A molecular evolutionist trying to differentiate two closely related species of monkeys by restriction fragment-length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis might cite restriction enzymes, which can cut DNA into pieces of varying length. A cell b