science

In 2012, a massive genomics consortium called ENCODE published its results. They'd spent years cataloging every functional element in the human genome—every piece of DNA that actually does something, not just the protein-coding genes. The headline finding: about 75-80% of the human genome gets transcribed into RNA.

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 transparent, genetically tractable, and dies quickly.

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 change the genetic sequence, but it changed

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 up some autonomy

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 more complex: a regulator, a