A newly mapped step in DNA replication suggests that strand separation begins at a precise junction between two helicase rings. Credit: Shutterstock Researchers mapped where DNA first opens and how a ...

Knights of science have long chased a biologic holy grail: transforming a soup of raw chemicals into self-sustaining life. Now, a team led by synthetic biologist Kate Adamala, of the University of ...

Understanding the origin of life requires addressing a collection of overlapping scientific questions. We’ve made a lot of progress toward explaining how simple chemicals present on an early Earth ...

Scientists say they have built a cell from scratch for the first time that can feed, grow and replicate like a natural cell. This breakthrough in synthetic biology could usher in an era of ...

For the very first time, biologists packed nonliving components into a cell-like membrane, piece by piece, and witnessed the bag of molecules start to behave like life. The lab-made synthetic cell ...

Scientists have long dreamed of discovering the alchemy by which chemicals can be turned into life. On Wednesday, a team at the University of Minnesota announced that it had taken a major step toward ...

The cells of animals, plants, and fungi start their lives by being torn apart. Cells are born by division, and just before a parent cell becomes two daughters, it doubles its nuclear DNA and carefully ...

The team engineered lipid-based vesicles — membrane-enclosed compartments that structurally resemble biological cells — and equipped them with a minimal set of molecular machinery capable of driving ...

Every second, millions of cells in your body divide in two. In the space of an hour, they duplicate their DNA and grow a web of protein fibers around it called a spindle. The spindle extends its many ...

Cell division is an essential process for all life on Earth, yet the exact mechanisms by which cells divide during early embryonic development have remained elusive—particularly for egg-laying species ...

Researchers discovered that a long-misunderstood protein plays a key role in helping chromosomes latch onto the right “tracks” during cell division. Instead of acting like a motor, it works more like ...

Every day, our bodies perform around 330 billion cell divisions to keep us alive and functioning. These divisions rely on the cell cycle, which has been in place since the earliest bacteria. The ...