In prokaryotes, the DNA (chromosome) is in contact with the cellular cytoplasm and is not in a housed membrane-bound nucleus. In eukaryotes, however, the DNA takes the form of compact chromosomes ...

Modern eukaryotic cells have proteins that enable chromosome segregation during cell division, new discoveries shed light on their origin in simpler prokaryotic organisms. Modern nucleated (eukaryotic ...

Prokaryotes are ancient, simple forms of life that include bacteria and archaea. These cellular life forms lack membrane-bound organelles. Those organelles, which include the nucleus and the ...

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, ...

An international collaboration between four senior scientists from Mainz, Valencia, Madrid, and Zurich has published groundbreaking research in the journal PNAS, shedding light on the most significant ...

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 ...

The chemical reactions on which life depends need a place to happen. That place is the cell. All the things which biology recognises as indisputably alive are either cells or conglomerations of cells ...

New studies revise ideas about the symbiosis that gave mitochondria to cells and about whether the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes was one cell or many. Our planet formed a little over 4.5 ...

Molecular biology has something in common with kite-flying competitions. At the latter, all eyes are on the colorful, elaborate, wildly kinetic constructions darting through the sky. Nobody looks at ...

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 ...