A surprising number of microbes use alternate genetic codes, different from the standard genetic code that governs the large majority of life. A census of these "recoded" genomes was recently reported ...

Crack open a biology textbook and you will find a standard icon of molecular biology: the table summarizing the standard genetic code. This refers to the set of rules by which the cell "decodes" the ...

On May 27, 1961, Heinrich Matthaei, a postdoc working with NIH scientist Marshal Nirenberg, placed synthetic polyuracil RNA into 20 test tubes to see what it would produce. Each tube contained ...