Ever since the genetic code was cracked in the 1960s, biologists have believed the language of DNA to be rather like the Latin of the medieval church: universal, fundamental and indispensable. It seemed that all creatures, from men to mice to humble E. coli bacteria, shared the same basic instructions for making proteins, the building blocks of life; variations among organisms were thought to involve only the number and type of proteins that are strung together. Now researchers in the U.S., Europe and Japan have found species + that defy certain words in the genetic scripture: in the familiar Paramecium, a...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
