The direct enzymatic conversion of an amino acid side chain to a chemical reporter would be an appealing means for site-specific protein labeling. An opportunity to achieve this was recently ...

Scientists poring over a sample brought back from the asteroid Bennu have detected amino acids and complex mineral compounds, some of which have never been found in space rocks. A team at the ...

These and other discoveries have left scientists wondering if any off-world amino acids might have once helped life evolve ...

Scientists have long believed they understood how life’s genetic code evolved, but new research upends that assumption. By ...

Bennu contains minerals and thousands of organic molecules, including the chemical components that make up DNA.

A big question in the origin of life on Earth is why it is based solely on "left-handed" amino acids. Studies on asteroid Bennu's chemical building blocks deepens the mystery. Credit: Christoph ...

This means important chemical reactions for life could have ... "While the detection of amino acids in the Bennu samples is an important discovery," he told Mashable, "we have not yet detected ...

In other words, Bennu's samples provide further evidence that life's building blocks formed early in the solar system and ...

The structural hallmark of boronic acids is their boron atom, which exhibits the ability to form a tetrahedral coordination complex with various substrates. A key aspect of their chemistry is the ...