Synthetic biologists from Yale were able to re-write the genetic code of an organism — a novel genomically recoded organism (GRO) with one stop codon — using a cellular platform […]
RNA
Life’s Building Blocks Discovered In Samples From Asteroid Bennu
Japanese collaborators detected all five nucleobases — building blocks of DNA and RNA — in samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission.
Pristine Asteroid Samples Reveal Secrets Of The Ancient Solar System
Curtin University researchers have gained an unprecedented glimpse into the early history of our solar system through some of the most well-preserved asteroid samples ever collected, potentially transforming our understanding […]
Exploring The Mysteries Of Asteroid Bennu
During the past year, there’s been an unusual set of samples at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab): material gathered from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu when […]
Dust From asteroid Bennu: Building Blocks Of Life And Possible Habitats Were Widespread In Our Solar System
It took two years for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe to return from asteroid Bennu before dropping off a small capsule as it flew past Earth, which was then recovered in […]
Traces Of Ancient Brine Discovered On Asteroid Bennu Contain Minerals Crucial To Life
A new analysis of samples from the asteroid Bennu, NASA’s first asteroid sample captured in space and delivered to Earth, reveals that evaporated water left a briny broth where salts […]
Asteroid Bennu Sample Reveals A Mix Of Life’s Ingredients
Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft have revealed molecules that, on our planet, […]
Study Sheds Light On The Origin Of Earth Life’s Genetic Code
Despite awe-inspiring diversity, nearly every lifeform – from bacteria to blue whales – shares the same genetic code. How and when this code came about has been the subject of […]
Tricorder Tech: New Method Tracks The ‘Learning Curve’ Of AI To Decode Complex Genomic Data
Editor’s note: If we aspire to mount expeditions to new worlds and then embrace the task of characterizing and quantifying whatever life forms we find, the ability to map and […]
The Extremophile Protein That Revolutionized DNA Sequencing
This game-changing bacterium is called Thermus aquaticus, and it can withstand temperatures as high as 80°C. It’s an example of an extremophile – an organism capable of living in extreme […]
