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.
For more than 60 years, evolutionary biologists have debated whether a unique genetic system found in ants, bees and wasps helps explain one of nature's most remarkable innovations: eusociality, a form of social organization ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 4, 2026
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The Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, spreads serious pathogens, including severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) virus, Rickettsia and Theileria, and its bite can cause a meat allergy in humans. ...
Ecology
Aug 4, 2026
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A new study provides quantitative data on cranial vault thickness in Homo antecessor, based on the analysis of three parietal fragments recovered from the Gran Dolina site in the Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain.
Evolution
Aug 3, 2026
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The signals that cells use to switch genes on have remained almost unchanged across 2 billion years of evolution, but the ones used to switch genes off vary dramatically from one branch of life to another, according to a ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 3, 2026
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104
Fertilization is often imagined as a frantic race, with millions of sperm competing for a single prize. But new research by a team of evolutionary biologists from Syracuse University, the University of Siena in Italy and ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 2, 2026
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51
The left-right asymmetry of South African butterfly lilies (genus Wachendorfia) has been regarded as a classic evolutionary puzzle for more than a century. Due to the mirror-image arrangement of the floral parts, the plants ...
Evolution
Aug 2, 2026
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Scientists have discovered a remarkably well-preserved 100-million-year-old beetle fossil that provides a rare glimpse into the evolution of the intricate sensory and communication systems used by fireflies and their relatives ...
Evolution
Jul 31, 2026
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Why do humans keep pets? A new international study suggests that some of the behavioral foundations of human-animal companionship may have much deeper evolutionary roots than previously thought.
Evolution
Jul 29, 2026
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313
Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine have developed an artificial intelligence framework that can redesign proteins on a scale previously seen only in natural evolution. The tool can create shorter, longer and ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 29, 2026
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12
Remembering the past can help living organisms make better decisions, but memory comes at a cost. Whether it is an animal searching for food or a single cell responding to its surroundings, storing and using information requires ...
Evolution
Jul 29, 2026
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