John M. Archibald is in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4H7, Canada, and also at the Institute for Comparative Genomics, Dalhousie ...

For foreign DNA to make it into a eukaryotic cell’s genome, DNA must first enter the cell, then cross the nuclear envelope, and finally insert itself into the genome. Below are a number of proposed ...

Current hypotheses suggest that all life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor that diversified into the variety of organisms seen today. Scientists propose that the eukaryotic branch of this family ...

All modern organisms fall into two classes, eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Eukaryotes (from the Greek meaning “true kernel”) have a cell nucleus that harbours most of the cell’s genetic information and ...

A new study challenges a popular scenario put forward to explain the arrival of the first eukaryotic organisms. In the beginning, there was boredom. Following the emergence of cellular life on earth, ...

Another potentially game-changing discovery has come out of the lab of Feng Zhang, PhD. This time, they uncovered the first programmable RNA-guided system in eukaryotes. Just a few months ago, the ...

When you get infected with a virus, some of the first weapons your body deploys to fight it were passed down to us from our microbial ancestors billions of years ago. According to new research from ...

For billions of years after the origin of life, the only living things on Earth were tiny, primitive cells resembling today’s bacteria. But then, more than 1.5 billion years ago, something remarkable ...