Why is DNA almost always a right-handed helix? Same with alpha helices, the building blocks of proteins. Chirality, or handedness, is everywhere in biology, but the reasons can be a mystery.

Linus Pauling discovered that many proteins take the shape of an alpha helix, spiraled like a spring coil. In 1950, biochemist Erwin Chargaff found that the arrangement of nitrogen bases in DNA ...

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the molecular "blueprint" carrying the genetic instructions that influence the growth, ...

The double helix is a description of the molecular shape of a double-stranded DNA molecule. In 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson first described the molecular structure of DNA, which they ...

First, a so-called initiator protein unwinds a short stretch of the DNA double helix. Then, a protein known as helicase attaches to and breaks apart the hydrogen bonds between the bases on the DNA ...

Researchers at the Chambers University of Technology have discovered that water is why DNA strands are wrapped around each other and have a helix shape. Understanding how DNA repairs itself could ...