Archaea are one of three domains of life, along with bacteria and the more complex eukaryotes. Now, new research has confirmed that archaea microbes package their DNA in tight coils that bend like a slinky, which may be the precursor for the more elaborate DNA system of eukaryotes.
The sweet potato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, is a costly menace to agricultural crops worldwide, and now researchers have found a possible reason for the whitefly's success: It has found a way to protect itself from the usual plant toxin defense.
An international team of researchers has reconstructed the oldest modern human genome from a human skull found in the modern Czech Republic that is thought to be at least 45,000 years old.
The current prevailing view in biological science is that the DNA of mitochondria, the structures that convert nutrients into cellular energy, is passed on only through maternal inheritance. How this idea came to be, and why it's wrong, is the subject of a review paper by physical anthropologist, Jeffrey H. Schwartz.