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.
Should you ever find yourself playing a trivia game on the topic of moths and butterflies, here are a few facts that might help. Collectively called Lepidoptera, moths and butterflies account for nearly 10% of all animal ...
Evolution
Feb 26, 2026
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Anyone who has seen a hummingbird poking her beak deep into a trumpet creeper blossom, or a honeyeater using its brush-tipped tongue to extract nectar from eucalyptus flowers, has witnessed something that, from a human perspective, ...
Evolution
Feb 26, 2026
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Why does your dog rush to "help" when you are searching for something, while your cat seems… eh, less concerned? New research suggests that this difference may stem from deep evolutionary roots—and that, in certain situations, ...
Evolution
Feb 26, 2026
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The preference of some mosquitoes in the Anopheles leucosphyrus (Leucosphyrus) group—including those that transmit malaria—for feeding on humans may have evolved in response to the arrival of early hominins in Southeast Asia ...
Evolution
Feb 26, 2026
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Whether people follow a general trend when choosing a partner or consciously decide against it has a noticeable impact on the diversity of phenotypes to choose from. This is shown by a new study by the University of Würzburg.
Evolution
Feb 24, 2026
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Ribosomes are the components of cells that read RNA and build proteins. Without the ribosome, the chemistry of life would still be catalyzed by raw RNA. And yet the origin of the ribosome remains a mystery. In a Perspective ...
Evolution
Feb 24, 2026
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When most people think about natural selection, they imagine individuals competing with one another: The fastest animal escapes predators, the strongest plant produces more seeds, and the most resistant bacteria better survive ...
Many insects rely on heritable bacterial endosymbionts for essential nutrients that they cannot get through their diet. A new study, published in Nature Communications, indicates that the genomes of these symbiotic bacteria ...
Neanderthals disappeared from the fossil record approximately 40,000 years ago. Their extinction was a gradual process over thousands of years, and theories as to why include competition with modern humans and rapid climate ...
A new study from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry, and Biophysics reveals a surprising insight into the operation of the ancestral brain: the visual cortex of turtles is capable of detecting unexpected visual stimuli ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 18, 2026
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