We have long struggled to determine how the first living organisms on Earth came together. Now, surprising evidence hints ...

Life's instructions are written in DNA, but it is the enzyme RNA polymerase II (Pol II) that reads the script, transcribing ...

Scientists have identified new anti-aging compounds produced by a little-studied blood bacterium. These indole metabolites ...

For the first time, MIT chemists have synthesized a fungal compound known as verticillin A, which was discovered more than 50 ...

An archaeon reads the same codon in two different ways, overturning a doctrine that has stood for 60 years. Living organisms ...

Molecular Biology is the field of biology that studies the composition, structure and interactions of cellular molecules such as nucleic acids and proteins that carry out the biological processes ...

Fluorescence is used in biology as a non-destructive way of analysing biological molecules, even at low concentrations, by means of the molecule’s intrinsic fluorescence, or by attaching it with a ...

The lowest of the four biosafety levels and is suitable for work involving well-characterized agents not known to consistently cause disease in healthy adult humans. These organisms pose minimal ...

BSL-2 is designed for work with agents that pose moderate hazards to personnel and the environment. These agents are associated with human diseases that are generally treatable or preventable. Agents ...

We use sequence-based approaches, flow cytometry, modeling, and other techniques to explore the structure and function of microbial communities. CalCOFI is a long-term, interdisciplinary, ...

Pyrrolysine is an important component of methyltransferase enzymes, which the archaea use to metabolize methylamine in the environment. “The need for that metabolism and availability of the machinery ...

Older than the Himalaya mountains, the mountain chain of the Western Ghats represents geomorphic features of immense importance with unique biophysical and ecological processes. The site’s high ...