In a shallow pond at Oxford University Parks, surrounded by dog walkers and rowing crews, a single-celled organism has been quietly defying one of biology’s most fundamental rules. A team led by ...

Despite awe-inspiring diversity, nearly every lifeform—from bacteria to blue whales—shares the same genetic code. How and when this code came about has been the subject of much scientific controversy.

Scientists have long believed that a universal genetic code serves as a blueprint for all life on Earth, dictating the structure and function of organisms from the simplest bacteria to complex humans.

Genes are the building blocks of life, and the genetic code provides the instructions for the complex processes that make organisms function. But how and why did it come to be the way it is? "We find ...