Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a genetic eye disorder affecting around one in 5,000 people worldwide. It typically begins with ...

DNA doesn’t just sit still inside our cells — it folds, loops, and rearranges in ways that shape how genes behave.

What keeps our cells the right size? Scientists have long puzzled over this fundamental question, since cells that are too large or too small are linked to many diseases. Until now, the genetic basis ...

Is it the invasion of the genome snatchers? Just in case the idea of aliens walking around in human skin suits wasn’t frightening enough. An outlandish study asserts that aliens might have abducted us ...

Chimpanzees, along with bonobos, are humans' closest living relatives. In fact, you may have heard that humans and chimps share 98.8% of their DNA. But is this actually true? And what does "similar ...

The non-coding genome, once dismissed as "junk DNA", is now recognized as a fundamental regulator of gene expression and a key player in understanding complex diseases. Following the landmark ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In 1957, just four years after Francis Crick and other scientists solved the riddle of ...

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) are a type of RNA molecule that do not carry instructions to make proteins. Instead, they influence how other genes are expressed. There are tens of thousands of lncRNAs ...

Scientists found genetic elements linked to hibernation in the human genome. Tapping into them could produce a new wave of medical treatments. Reading time 3 minutes After spending months without ...

The puzzle seems impossible: take a three-billion-letter code and predict what happens if you swap a single letter. The code we’re talking about—the human genome—stores most of its instructions in ...

The puzzle seems impossible: take a three-billion-letter code and predict what happens if you swap a single letter. The code we’re talking about—the human genome—stores most of its instructions in ...

The ability to sequence and edit human DNA has revolutionized biomedicine. Now a new consortium wants to take the next step and build human genomes from scratch. The Human Genome Project was one of ...