The National Deuteration Facility has developed a capability to use a flow chemistry process to increase efficiency, increase ...

Amino acids are like Lego blocks—they can be linked together to form complex structures called proteins. Unlike Legos, however, there are only 20 different types of amino acids available to build a ...

The origin of fatty acids on the prebiotic Earth is important as they likely formed the encapsulating membranes of the first protocells. Carbon-rich meteorites (i.e., carbonaceous chondrites) such as ...

Exactly how life sprung out of non-living matter is one of biology's biggest mysteries. But with continued research into our own origin story, it's starting to seem like life on early Earth was just ...

While humans have an esthetic liking for symmetry in everything, nature prefers asymmetric, single-handed forms when it comes to amino acids—the building blocks of proteins, and, by extension, all ...

It nearly baffled researchers to see amino acids that make up life today spontaneously link up under lab conditions that mimicked those of pre-life Earth. The result was predecessors of today's ...

As a molecular biologist, I always enjoy reading articles concerning DNA and RNA. Your excellent article in the April 3, 2023, issue of C&EN (page 18) titled “The Promise of Peptide Nucleic Acids” ...