science

RNA Interference: Silencing Genes on Demand In 1998, two scientists published a paper that would win them a Nobel Prize and launch an entire industry. Andrew Fire and Craig Mello had been studying gene expression in C. elegans—the tiny nematode worm that molecular biologists love because it's

Epitranscriptomics: RNA's Own Epigenetic Layer In 1974, scientists discovered something curious about DNA. The nucleotide bases—the A, T, G, C that encode genetic information—weren't always plain. Sometimes they had chemical groups attached. Methyl groups, mostly, stuck onto cytosine bases. This methylation didn't

The Mitochondria Mythos Two billion years ago, a bacterium crawled inside another cell and never left. That's the origin story of every complex cell on Earth. The invader—or maybe the guest—became the mitochondrion. It gave up its independence in exchange for protection. The host cell gave

Synthesis: RNA as Information Processor Let's pull it together. Over the past seven articles, we've traced the RNA renaissance from its roots to its frontiers. We've seen RNA transform from a simple messenger—a tape carrying instructions from DNA to ribosomes—into something vastly

Phase Separation: The Liquid Physics of Cells In 2009, Cliff Brangwynne and Tony Hyman published a paper that would quietly reshape cell biology. They were studying germline granules in C. elegans—small structures inside cells that contain RNA and proteins and are involved in early development. Scientists had known about

Circular RNA: The Newly Discovered Layer In 1976, researchers studying plant viruses found something strange. Some viral RNA molecules weren't linear chains with two ends—they were closed loops. Circles. The RNA's 3' end was covalently bonded to its 5' end, forming a continuous