Genes are segments of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that are located inside every human cell. The DNA inside each cell is tightly coiled in structures called chromosomes. Each chromosome contains a ...

Life’s story may stretch further back than scientists once thought. Some genes found in nearly every organism today were already duplicated before all life shared a common ancestor. By tracking these ...

For millennia, evolution has intrigued many great thinkers, prompting questions about how new traits emerge as species adapt over time. Then, attention shifted to natural selection and the inheritance ...

A groundbreaking study suggests that our genes may play a much larger role in our expiration date than we ever imagined.

Why do some people live to 100 while their sibling dies decades earlier? Is it luck, lifestyle, or something written into their DNA? Relative to many other species, humans are particularly long-lived, ...

Men tend to lose the Y chromosome from their cells as they age. But because the Y bears few genes other than for male ...

Scientists studying thousands of rats discovered that gut bacteria are shaped by both personal genetics and the genetics of social partners. Some genes promote certain microbes that can spread between ...

Muscles make up nearly 40% of the human body and power every move we make, from a child's first steps to recovery after ...