Morning Overview on MSN

RNA strand that nearly self-replicates could unlock life’s origin

A 45-nucleotide strand of RNA can now synthesize both its mirror-image complement and a copy of itself, bringing scientists ...

Tiny, 45 base long RNA can make copies of itself

These random molecules were fed a collection of three-base-long RNAs, each linked to a chemical tag. The idea was that if a molecule is capable of ligating one of these short RNA fragments to itself, ...
Kaleido Scope

UAB researchers uncover protein SRSF1’s uncommon ability to bind and unfold RNA G-quadruplexes

RNA transcription is the genomic process in which a cell produces a duplicate of a gene’s DNA sequence. Present in both DNA and RNA sequences, a G-quadruplex (GQ) is a structure of four guanine bases ...

RNA is key to the dark matter of the genome − scientists are sequencing it to illuminate human health and disease

Although there are striking differences between the cells that make up your eyes, kidneys, brain and toes, the DNA blueprint for these cells is essentially the same. Where do those differences come ...
New Scientist on MSN

RNA strand that can almost self-replicate may be key to life's origins

Life may have begun when RNA molecules began to replicate themselves, and now we’ve finally found an RNA molecule that is very close to being able to do this ...