Bacteria are among the most diverse and ancient forms of life on Earth. Yet, much of what is known about them comes from a ...

In the dim waters off the Japanese coast, scientists have stumbled upon something that shouldn’t exist. Or at least not by ...

A closeup look at colibactin’s structure reveals chemical motifs that guide its mutation-wreaking “warheads” to specific stretches of DNA.

The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 amino acids. But certain groups of microbes have an expanded genetic code, in ...

Evo’s success wasn’t limited to proteins. When they tested a different toxin that had an RNA-based inhibitor, the system ...

Who are the real mutants, and what’s going to cure them? Of course, we all are mutants – not just as the Homo sapiens sapiens limited-edition model from 4.5 billion years of mutation at Terrestrial ...

In 1812, the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte led a doomed army on a disastrous retreat from Russia. With food scarce, winter approaching and diseases running rampant, hundreds of thousands of ...

Genetic material pulled from 13 teeth found in a grave in Lithuania revealed infectious diseases that felled the French emperor’s troops as they withdrew from Russia. By Gina Kolata Napoleon’s army ...

In 1812 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia with one of the largest armies in history—the “Grande Armée” of about half a million men. But when they were forced to retreat, harsh winter conditions, ...

Some genetic disorders—such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia and Tay Sachs disease—involve many mutations in a person's genome, often with enough variation that even two individuals who share the same ...

Sequencing mammoth DNA has already helped scientists map out how these Ice Age giants evolved, migrated, and survived. But there's a hidden layer of history still waiting to be decoded – the microbes ...

Just like humans, mammoths had a robust community of microorganisms living on their skin and inside their bodies. Now, for the first time, scientists have identified some of the individual species ...