Biological evolution is the heritable change in characteristics of biological populations over successive generations, driven by mechanisms such as mutation, recombination, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural and sexual selection. It operates through changes in allele frequencies within gene pools, constrained and shaped by developmental, physiological, and ecological contexts. Evolutionary processes generate adaptation, diversification, and extinction, producing hierarchical patterns from microevolutionary shifts within populations to macroevolutionary dynamics among lineages. At the molecular level, evolution involves sequence variation, genomic rearrangements, and changes in gene regulation, which collectively underlie phenotypic diversity and the emergence of complex biological organization.
The questions of how humankind came to be, and whether we are alone in the universe, have captured imaginations for millennia. But to answer these questions, scientists must first understand life itself and how it could have ...
Evolution
Sep 16, 2025
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How do cells know what they should become as the body develops? Biological development depends crucially on spatial patterns: the lines that eventually give rise to segments, organs, or markings like stripes and spots. Yet ...
Evolution
Sep 16, 2025
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How did humans become human? Understanding when, where and in what environmental conditions our early ancestors lived is central to solving the puzzle of human evolution.
Earth Sciences
Sep 16, 2025
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Researchers at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift—driven not by genes, but by culture.
Evolution
Sep 15, 2025
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Populations live in rapidly changing environments—droughts come and go, food sources change, human activities reshape habitats. For scientists, this raises a fundamental puzzle: How do populations maintain the genetic diversity ...
Evolution
Sep 15, 2025
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Many scientific discoveries are serendipitous—the result of chance. Seeing evolution in action in a cheese cave turned out to be exactly that for Benjamin Wolfe, associate professor of biology, and his colleagues.
Molecular & Computational biology
Sep 13, 2025
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Artificial intelligence is now better than humans at identifying many patterns, but evolutionary relationships have always been difficult for the technology to decipher. A team from the Bioinformatics Department at Ruhr University ...
Evolution
Sep 10, 2025
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Meerkats genetically adapt to a species-specific form of tuberculosis according to a long-term study by an international research team led by Ulm University. The scientists also found that climate change in the Kalahari Desert ...
Evolution
Sep 10, 2025
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Micronutrients, minerals that are part of the human diet in small amounts, may have influenced human evolution more than previously recognized. In a new study published Sept. 10 in the journal The American Journal of Human ...
Evolution
Sep 10, 2025
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A paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution finds that the relatively high rate of autism-spectrum disorders in humans is likely due to how humans evolved in the past. The paper is titled "A general principle of neuronal evolution ...
Evolution
Sep 9, 2025
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