Bennu is a primitive rock. It has remained mostly unchanged since the birth of our solar system around 4.6 billion years ago. On September 24, 2023, dust and mineral samples were hauled to Earth by ...

Using a highly sensitive mass spectrometer capable of detecting trace chemicals, the researchers discovered that their early Earth simulation created an entire collection of sulfur biomolecules. These ...

The beauty of the DNA code is that organisms interpret it unambiguously. Each three-letter nucleotide sequence, or codon, in a gene codes for a unique ...

Some of the oldest objects in the solar system still drift above your head. Asteroids and comets formed before Earth took ...

We have long struggled to determine how the first living organisms on Earth came together. Now, surprising evidence hints that poorly understood prions may have been the vital missing ingredient ...

When scientists sifted through dust from asteroid Bennu and spotted tryptophan, the same amino acid often blamed for ...

Tryptophan, the essential amino acid behind the Thanksgiving myth that eating turkey can make you sleepy, has been found to ...

Research into Kisspeptin-10 has expanded well beyond its initial discovery as a metastasis suppressor fragment.

The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 ...

A polymer is a substance made of many repeating units linked together, like beads on a string. Plastics are polymers, and so ...

Pyrrolysine is an important component of methyltransferase enzymes, which the archaea use to metabolize methylamine in the environment. “The need for that metabolism and availability of the machinery ...