Scientists may have found a clue to one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the origin of life: how fragile RNA molecules could gather and survive before cells existed. New research shows that RNA is ...

RNA and DNA are chemical cousins. But one tiny difference between them (an extra oxygen atom repeated along RNA’s backbone) can radically change how the molecules behave. Researchers have now found ...

Heat-loving RNA droplets may be the missing step between raw chemistry and the first living cells.

Gene expression is linked to RNA transcription, which cannot happen without RNA polymerase. However, this is where the similarities between prokaryote and eukaryote expression end. Central to the ...

There have been many important discoveries along the path to what we know today about RNA, or ribonucleic acid—a molecule found in every living cell that helps carry and interpret genetic instructions ...