The chemical origin of life on Earth is a puzzle that scientists have been trying to piece together for decades. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain how life came to be and what chemical and ...

Building such polymers is relatively easy due to the structural similarity of DNA and other nucleic acids, allowing them to bind naturally in a specific order. Using PNA “adapters” to bind these ...

Scientists have been investigating properties of so-called xenonucleic acids or XNAs. They have demonstrated for the first time that six of these unnatural nucleic acid polymers are capable of sharing ...

DNA. The very acronym calls to mind the molecule’s exquisite structure, a linear double helix. Our understanding of DNA and its orbiting strands has thrown back the curtains on many diseases—cancer, ...

The only chemical difference between DNA and a synthetic cousin, GNA, is in the sugar molecule. GNA uses a three-carbon sugar called glycerol rather than the five-carbon deoxyribose used in DNA. The ...

If you’ve ever learned a language, says Jen Heemstra of Emory University, there are two levels of understanding. First you learn to read text and comprehend it. Then you begin speaking the language ...

In remote locations without sophisticated laboratory equipment and trained technicians, people need a simple, cheap way to screen for diseases. Now researchers describe a simple, paperlike device ...

After much dithering, the state government on Saturday said it would soon introduce the nucleic acid amplification test in polymer chain reaction (NAT PCR) method for screening blood before ...