DNA is fundamental to the biology of all life on Earth, but how many of us actually know what it is or what it's made of?

and a nitrogenous base. Adjacent ribose nucleotide bases are chemically attached to one another in a chain via chemical bonds called phosphodiester bonds. Unlike DNA, RNA is usually single-stranded.

This process is called elongation. Three of the four nitrogenous bases that make up RNA — adenine (A), cytosine (C), and guanine (G) — are also found in DNA. In RNA, however, a base called ...

Comparison of a single-stranded RNA and a double-stranded DNA with their corresponding nucleobases. (Image: Wikimedia Commons, CC SA 3.0) The most common type of base pairing is the Watson-Crick base ...

All five nucleobases that make up DNA and RNA have now been detected in meteorite samples ... as terrestrial soil and other environments also contain nucleotide bases. “I think [the researchers] ...

This discovery, along with the identification of other nitrogenous bases, laid the foundation for our understanding of DNA and RNA structure. Cytosine can be synthesized chemically or isolated from ...