Caltech researchers have identified a novel chemical reaction that could explain the formation of the building blocks of DNA ...

In living organisms today, complex molecules like RNA and DNA are constructed with the help of enzymes. So how did these molecules form before life (and enzymes) existed? Why did some molecules end up ...

No one saw the blob takeover coming. In 2009 a team of biophysicists led by Anthony A. Hyman of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, were studying ...

Researchers from the University of Adelaide have discovered how water molecules are organized during plant hydrolytic reactions, knowledge that could have sweeping consequences for the biomedical, ...

Scientists have uncovered a surprising role for calcium in shaping the building blocks of life. Their study reveals that calcium ions help determine the molecular 'handedness' (chirality) of tartaric ...

The complex precursors to biological molecules can form spontaneously in interstellar space, according to a lab experiment that opens up new pathways for the origin of life in the universe. In the ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Ten years ago, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe pulled up alongside a dusty, icy lump the size of a mountain. The probe would ...

Far from Earth, in the vast expanses of space between stars, exists a treasure trove of carbon. There, in what scientists call the “interstellar medium,” you can find a wide range of organic molecules ...