Our body’s proteins are largely the same as those of apes and monkeys, and the similarities extend even to the less human-like creatures: We share roughly 90 percent of our proteins with mice and 70 percent with fish. But if proteins, and the genes that encode them,...
Peculiar hybrid structures called retrons that are half RNA, half single-strand DNA are found in many species of bacteria. Since their discovery around 35 years ago, researchers have learned how to use retrons for producing single strands of DNA in the lab, but no one...
By tracking the evolution of what may be our oldest means of fighting off viral infection, a group at the Weizmann Institute of Science has uncovered a gold mine of antiviral substances that may lead to the development of highly effective antiviral drugs. These...