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 ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...