Molecular biology

New techniques expose unexpected diversity within seemingly uniform tissues.

The proteins that unravel as the temperature starts to rise turn out to be among the most vital.

Without viruses, we might never have evolved.

Proteins work like rigid keys to activate cellular functions — or so everyone thought. Scientists are discovering a huge number of proteins that shape-shift to do their work, upending a century-old maxim of biology.

A virus that causes crippling birth defects has been shown to do something else: It changes thousands of messages coming from DNA that control normal cellular activities.

A new look at the reasons why organisms missing pairs of genes sometimes do much better than normal.

In a monumental set of experiments, spread out over nearly two decades, biologists removed genes two at a time to uncover the secret workings of the cell.

Gene drives promise to spread a trait across an entire population. But evolutionary forces are going to alter even the best-engineered plans.

A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular machinery that powers the cell.