Imagine the human genome as a string stretching out for the length of a football field, with all the genes that encode proteins clustered at the end near your feet. Take two big steps forward; all the ...

Once disregarded as “junk DNA,” scientists now know that this molecular dark matter is crucial for determining gene activity in ways that keep us healthy—or cause disease. Exactly how this DNA shapes ...

Twenty-two years after the completion of the Human Genome Project, scientists have unveiled the most expansive catalog of human genetic variation ever compiled. Across two new papers published ...

Tiny "hidden" proteins lurking in DNA once dismissed as junk may hold the key to the next generation of obesity drugs, according to a new study that has uncovered dozens of new fat-regulating ...

For decades, biologists have known that the instructions for life are written in DNA, yet the vast majority of those letters seemed to sit in the dark, doing little that was obvious. Now a new ...

Ancient viruses left a legacy in your DNA. And it turns out, that legacy may be helping shape who you are. A recent international study has shown that certain bits of ancient viral DNA, long dismissed ...

Only around two percent of the human genome codes for proteins, and while those proteins carry out many important functions of the cell, the rest of the genome cannot be ignored. However, for decades ...

Leuven, Belgium - VIB researchers linked to K.U.Leuven and Harvard University show that stretches of DNA previously believed to be useless 'junk' DNA play a vital role in the evolution of our genome.

The peripheral nervous system includes the nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body. Peripheral neurons can be extraordinarily large, with their extensions reaching up to ...

Junk DNA may not be so useless after all. Scientists coined the term to describe the genetic wasteland within the human genome that consists of long stretches of DNA for which there was no known ...