To understand the human genome, scientists focused on protein-coding genes and their functions for decades. This has given us ...

The human genome contains about 20,000 protein-coding genes, but that only accounts for roughly two percent of the genome. For many years, it was easier for scientists to simply ignore all of that ...

For decades, scientists have been puzzled by large portions of the human genome labeled as “junk” DNA, sequences that seemingly serve no purpose. Yet, recent studies suggest these cryptic sequences ...

Researchers have revealed that so-called ‘junk DNA’ contains powerful switches that help control brain cells linked to Alzheimer’s disease. When people picture DNA, they often imagine a set of genes ...

An international project has uncovered millions of ancient DNA 'switches' that have been regulating plant genes for up to 300 million years - a ...

A tiny percentage of our DNA—around 2%—contains 20,000-odd genes. The remaining 98%—long known as the non-coding genome, or so-called 'junk' DNA—includes many of the "switches" that control when and ...

For decades, biologists have known that the instructions for life are written in DNA, yet the vast majority of those letters seemed to sit in the dark, doing little that was obvious. Now a new ...