The cold season is in full swing, throats are scratchy and noses are running. We feel ill and hope it is not the flu. The ...

Every living cell transcribes DNA into RNA. This process begins when an enzyme called RNA polymerase (RNAP) clamps onto DNA. Within a few hundred milliseconds, the DNA double helix unwinds to form a ...

Inside every cell, thousands of molecular signals collide, overlap, and compensate, obscuring the true drivers of gene expression. Scientists have now developed a way to silence that cellular noise, ...

According to this model, sigma (σ) factors bind to RNA polymerase to initiate transcription—the process by which genetic information is copied from DNA to RNA—and then detach after initiation to allow ...

A new study overturns a central textbook model of bacterial gene regulation and unveils new paths for understanding bacterial gene regulation and its evolution. This could help designing better ...

There are plenty of unanswered questions about the origin of life on Earth. But the research community has largely reached consensus that one of the key steps was the emergence of an RNA molecule that ...

Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other ...

A single intramuscular injection of a self-amplifying RNA therapy produced weeks of heart-protective protein in rat models of myocardial infarction, according to a study published in Science on March ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In 1957, just four years after Francis Crick and other scientists solved the riddle of ...