The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

For decades, scientists have known that bacteria can exchange genetic material, in a process called horizontal gene transfer. This allows bacteria to rapidly evolve new traits, such as antibiotic ...

When Charles Darwin first proposed how evolution works in 1859, it seemed plausible. Tiny changes stack up over time, eventually leading a species to become something entirely different. Aside from ...

“Random DNA” is naturally active in the one-celled fungi yeast, while such DNA is turned off as its natural state in mammalian cells, despite their having a common ancestor a billion years ago and the ...

Researchers showed that in C. elegans, the protein MBD-2 regulates genes through repressive histone marks rather than DNA ...

SALT LAKE CITY - Evolution is often thought of as a gradual remodeling of the genome, the genetic blueprints for building an organism. In some instances it might be more appropriate to call it an ...

The genetic code acts as life’s instruction manual, telling cells how to build proteins from DNA and RNA. Though it's a marvel of molecular precision, the path it took to evolve remains unclear. Fresh ...

The often-mentioned fact that humans and chimpanzees are 99.9 percent identical in their DNA is hard to accept for some people, who can't comprehend how we could share so much of our basic genetic ...