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.
New findings, published in Nature, help answer the riddle of how vertebrates evolved the diverse array of brain cells that distinguishes them from other animals. It appears that a dramatic expansion of the genetic toolkit ...
Evolution
Jun 10, 2026
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All cells in animals, plants, fungi, and protists share a fundamental characteristic: they are eukaryotic cells—complex cells with specialized internal compartments. The cells that make up our bodies are no exception.
Evolution
Jun 10, 2026
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The time-development of species communities cannot be understood solely through ecological interactions or environmental factors, as evolution can also alter community dynamics. This observation helps to understand, among ...
Evolution
Jun 9, 2026
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Sloths are the slowest mammals on the planet, but living in dense jungles has made them notoriously difficult to study. For the first time, scientists have now sequenced and analyzed the two-toed sloth genome and revealed ...
Evolution
Jun 9, 2026
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Chimpanzees are the only great apes, apart from humans, that have adapted to living on savannas as well as in forests. However, it is not yet well understood how the harsh ecological conditions of the savanna—compared with ...
Evolution
Jun 9, 2026
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The way that Earth's first animals reproduced held back life's diversity for millions of years, until stress and competition led to the development of sexual reproduction, which in turn accelerated the pace of evolution.
Evolution
Jun 9, 2026
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Typically, the information encoded in DNA allows organisms to develop, function, and pass traits across generations. Yet DNA alone does not explain how genes are switched on and off in different cells and environments. This ...
Evolution
Jun 7, 2026
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European fallow deer have faced a dramatic loss of genetic diversity since the last interglacial period. This was revealed by 120,000-year-old fossils from central Germany's Neumark-Nord site in Saxony-Anhalt, analyzed by ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 6, 2026
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In recent years, human population growth, coupled with the climate crisis, environmental pressures, and current production and consumption patterns, has driven the search for alternative food sources. With 1,611 insect species ...
Ecology
Jun 5, 2026
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A new study by plant biologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, challenges a longstanding idea that stems from the large number of flowers in the mountains of Central and South America that have evolved to be ...
Evolution
Jun 4, 2026
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