Why is the heart slightly on the left side of the body for most people? Why is DNA almost always a right-handed helix? Same with alpha helices, the building blocks of proteins. Chirality, or ...

After two years of failure, Griffith finally found an answer. Using a delicate technique that he describes as “more witchcraft than science,” he began spraying his DNA samples with a thin coating of ...

DNA can sustain serious injuries called double strand breaks, in which both strands of the helix snap. These breaks are among ...

On a foggy Saturday morning in 1953, a tall, skinny 24-year-old man fiddled with shapes he had cut out of cardboard. They represented fragments of a DNA molecule, and young James Watson was trying to ...

James Watson, who co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, has died at age 97. Born in Chicago in 1928, Watson made the groundbreaking discovery at just 24 years old alongside British ...

To our immune system, a potentially lifesaving gene therapy can look a lot like a dangerous infection. That's because most ...

James D. Watson, whose co-discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953 helped light the long fuse on a revolution in medicine, crimefighting, genealogy and ethics, has died. He was 97.The ...