New research has found that amino acids, the building blocks of life, may have traveled to Earth on interstellar dust grains, ...

A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds light on one of life's greatest mysteries: why biology is based on a very ...

For decades, scientists have tried to figure out why the genetic basis for life on Earth involved 20 key amino acids, when just 13 would have been enough to jump-start the evolution of all the ...

Biochemists shed light on the evolution of our 20- amino acid toolbox. The genetic code of life depends mainly on 20 amino acids, which can be arranged in various combinations to form proteins. For ...

Non-canonical amino acids – Incorporating customized amino acids that needed to be pre-synthesized prior to solid-phase ...

A study finds that proteinaceous amino acids, which are incorporated into protein chains by living organisms, more readily form short chains that resemble modern proteins than nonproteinaceous amino ...

Although the myriad proteins found in all life are largely built from a set of 20 amino acids, many other amino acids exist in nature, and it remains a curiosity as to why some were ultimately ...

A chemical conundrum complicates researchers’ understanding of how the first biological cells emerged. Those protocells were most likely formed from fatty acid vesicles serving as membranes. Some ...

If you have ever cooked on a gas stove or seen a flame flicker to life with the turn of a knob, you have seen natural gas in ...