A surprising number of microbes use alternate genetic codes, different from the standard genetic code that governs the large majority of life. A census of these "recoded" genomes was recently reported ...

In a giant feat of genetic engineering, scientists have created bacteria that make proteins in a radically different way than all natural species do. By Carl Zimmer At the heart of all life is a code.

Early researchers studying the genetic code had to determine if the mRNA encoding amino acids was non-overlapping. Was it each sequential set of three nucleotides encoding one amino acid? Or was it ...