This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Remember that news-making ENCODE study with ...

ENCODE, the $185-million successor to the Human Genome Project, promises to reveal new details about our DNA. But controversy persists as geneticists remain at odds over one little f-word—"function" ...

The cells in human bodies are subject to both chemical and mechanical forces. But until recently, scientists have not understood much about how to manipulate the mechanical side of that equation. That ...

Scientists have discovered a protein-encoding function for circular RNA, a form of RNA until now considered non-coding. This kind of RNA molecule is highly active in brain cells. By identifying the ...

Researchers have uncovered a vast new class of previously unrecognized mammalian genes that do not encode proteins, but instead function as long RNA molecules, and seem to play critical roles in both ...