Around 45 percent of human DNA is made up of transposable elements, or TEs—genetic leftovers from now-extinct viruses that scientists once believed to be “junk DNA.” But that view is changing, and a ...

Researchers uncovered millions of ancient plant DNA switches—some older than flowering plants themselves—revealing a hidden evolutionary blueprint stretching back 400 million years. Most people have ...

Scientists have uncovered an enormous hidden archive of plant DNA that has endured for more than 400 million years. By comparing hundreds of plant genomes, researchers identified more than 2.3 million ...

Mitochondria are often described as the cell’s power plants, but a wave of new research suggests their genetic material may also hide a critical, underappreciated source of disease. Scientists are ...

Mitochondrial DNA has long been treated as a workhorse record of cellular history, but new research suggests it also hides a subtle and previously overlooked form of damage. By uncovering this cryptic ...

A deep genetic mystery has baffled plant scientists for decades. Although leaves, stems, and flowers develop in strikingly similar ways across many ...

A new study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with international institutions, has uncovered a key mechanism in how DNA behaves as it passes through nanoscale pores—a ...

Scientists at Kyoto University have uncovered a hidden protein complex that organizes DNA in sperm stem cells, a discovery that reveals surprising ties between fertility and cancer. When this protein, ...

What determines a cell’s identity isn’t the genes within but how they’re used. To read and interpret this genetic material, cells rely on transcription factors. These proteins bind to specific regions ...

The Earth is an almost unimaginably diverse planet in terms of species. Researchers have identified between two and three million species, but there are many more that we know nothing about. The ...