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.
How did the complexity of many organisms living today evolve from the simpler body plans of their ancestors? This is a central question in biology. Take our hands, for example: Every time we type a message on our mobile phone, ...
Evolution
Feb 9, 2026
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Rove beetles have evolved a neat trick to survive. They cloak themselves in ant pheromones, allowing them to enter and remain undetected within ant colonies. But it comes with a catch. Once a rove beetle lineage evolves this ...
It's not what they intended to do or expected to find. They're not even all that interested in birds. When Andre Naranjo and his colleagues began work on a new study published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, ...
Evolution
Feb 5, 2026
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The evolution of the human species is marked by an increase in brain size. Now new research suggests that could be partly dependent on increases in prenatal estrogen—revealed by looking at the length of a person's fingers. ...
Evolution
Feb 5, 2026
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An international study investigating the genomic diversity of the Sudanese population reveals that the Copts originating in Egypt—who settled in the country between the seventh and eleventh centuries—have acquired a genetic ...
Evolution
Feb 5, 2026
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Humans' exposure to high temperature burn injuries may have played an important role in our evolutionary development, shaping how our bodies heal, fight infection, and sometimes fail under extreme injury, according to new ...
Evolution
Feb 4, 2026
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A single queen in the tropics; large colonies in deserts; workers with uniform morphology in temperate regions; ant social structures vary according to environmental conditions. This is shown, for the first time at a global ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 4, 2026
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Snakes may well be one of nature's greatest predators, capable of eating whole deer or even crocodiles, but just as impressive is that they can go months, or even a whole year, without a single meal. And now an international ...
The fastest land animal in North America is the American pronghorn, and previously, researchers thought it evolved its speed because of pressure from the now-extinct American cheetah. But recently, that theory has come under ...
Evolution
Feb 3, 2026
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58
New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered a crucial piece in the puzzle of how all animals with a spine—including all mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians—evolved. In a paper published in BMC Biology, ...
Evolution
Feb 1, 2026
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