Science Frontiers · deep-mysteries

Filed by Dr. Vera Quark

Scientists accidentally discovered a microscopic organism with a genetic code that breaks a rule researchers thought was nearly universal. While testing a new DNA sequencing technique, they examined a previously unknown protist collected from a freshwater pond at Oxford University. To their surprise, the organism uses two genetic signals that normally mark the end of a gene to encode two entirely different amino acids instead. These signals were previously thought to evolve together, making the