Genetics

Human endogenous retroviruses make up 8 percent of the human genome. Researchers are studying how active they are

Svante Pääbo’s work on sequencing the DNA of Neandertals and Denisovans, which won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, revealed surprising interbreeding among human species

Elephants use 20 copies of a key cancer-fighting gene—and humans just have one

Pasty cave fish seem to repurpose a melanin-making molecule to better survive famine

A new study explores how the flying spider-monkey tree fern might hoard chromosomes

The freaky physics phenomenon of quantum tunneling may mutate genes

For the first time, researchers have sequenced all 3,117,275,501 bases of our genetic code

A landmark study is the first major effort to quantify how lactose tolerance developed

The virus circulating in the current outbreak has mutated 50 times in the past four years

With infections still surging, the U.S. needs to invest in this technology to prepare for the next variants

A technique that detects coronavirus strains circulating in a community could become an early-warning system

Salivary glands make unexpected use of tiny ionocytes, essential to frogs and fish