A nucleic acid is a long molecule made up of smaller molecules called nucleotides. Nucleic acids were discovered in 1868, when twenty-four-year-old Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher isolated a ...

The nucleic acid molecules inherited by the living cell bear the plan of all the cell's protein molecules. It now appears that another kind of nucleic acid plays a key role in translating the plan ...

Hidden within the genetic code lies the "triplet code," a series of three nucleotides that determine a single amino acid. How did scientists discover and unlock this amino acid code? Once the ...