Complex life, eukaryotes, traces its origins to a shared ancestor among the Asgard archaea, reshaping our understanding of ...

When cells proliferate, genomic DNA is precisely duplicated once per cell cycle. Abnormalities in this DNA replication process can cause alterations ...

Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. Every organism visible to the ...

Researchers at the Smithsonian and around the world are working to sequence the genomes of every eukaryotic species on Earth in the next 10 years through the Earth BioGenome Project. Erin Malsbury ...

A novel type of “jumping gene” may explain why the genomes of complex cells aren’t all equally stuffed with noncoding sequences. All animals, plants, fungi and protists — which collectively make up ...

Modern eukaryotic cells have proteins that enable chromosome segregation during cell division, new discoveries shed light on their origin in simpler prokaryotic organisms. Modern nucleated (eukaryotic ...

A new study challenges a popular scenario put forward to explain the arrival of the first eukaryotic organisms. In the beginning, there was boredom. Following the emergence of cellular life on earth, ...

E. coli divides faster than it can replicate its genome, while simultaneously expressing its genes. Scientists recently revealed the intricate molecular coordination that makes this possible. “It’s as ...