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.
Research conducted by Filip Kolář of the Faculty of Science, Charles University, and Patrick Meirmans of the University of Amsterdam has revealed that genome duplication (polyploidization)—a process playing a key role in ...
Evolution
Jun 16, 2025
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Great apes began to diverge from other primates about 25 million years ago, according to eastern African fossil records. Though it would take another 20 million or so years for upright-walking hominins to appear, understanding ...
Evolution
Jun 12, 2025
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In most vertebrates, skin appendages such as hair, feathers, or scales originate from placodes—small, specialized skin regions whose spatial organization is controlled by well-conserved genetic signals. Crocodiles are an ...
Evolution
Jun 10, 2025
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In a recent study, researchers gained new insight into the lives of bacteria that survive by grouping together as if they were a multicellular organism. The organisms in the study are the only bacteria known to do this in ...
Astrobiology
Apr 2, 2025
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336
Isolated by mountains along the East African Rift is Lake Tanganyika. More than 400 miles long, it is the continent's deepest lake and accounts for 16% of the world's available freshwater. Between 2 and 3 million years ago, ...
Astrobiology
Feb 19, 2025
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491
A popular model of evolution concludes that it was incredibly unlikely for humanity to evolve on Earth, and that extraterrestrial intelligence is vanishingly rare.
Astrobiology
Feb 17, 2025
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Humanity may not be extraordinary but rather the natural evolutionary outcome for our planet and likely others, according to a new model for how intelligent life developed on Earth.
Astrobiology
Feb 14, 2025
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During the last century, biologists have extensively studied Drosophila melanogaster, the common household fruit fly. It's become one of the most popular model organisms, but not because scientists have been determined to ...
Condensed Matter
Jan 16, 2025
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64
We have only one example of biology forming in the universe—life on Earth. But what if life can form in other ways? How do you look for alien life when you don't know what alien life might look like?
Astrobiology
Dec 9, 2024
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187
The rise of drug-resistant bacteria infections is one of the world's most severe global health issues, estimated to cause 10 million deaths annually by the year 2050. Some of the most virulent and antibiotic-resistant bacterial ...
Bio & Medicine
Feb 15, 2022
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