Molecular evolution is the biological process encompassing changes in the nucleotide sequences of DNA or RNA and the amino acid sequences of proteins over time, driven by mutation, recombination, genetic drift, natural selection, and other population-level forces. It focuses on the rates and patterns of substitutions, insertions, deletions, and genome rearrangements, as well as the emergence of new genes and regulatory elements. Molecular evolution underlies divergence among species, functional innovation, and conservation of essential biomolecules, and is quantitatively analyzed using models of sequence evolution, comparative genomics, and phylogenetic inference to elucidate evolutionary relationships and constraints at the molecular level.
All cells in the human body—and the motions they enable, from our beating hearts to our wiggling toes—use energy generated by a molecule called ATP. Its energy is thought to be released to fuel cellular processes in only ...
Biotechnology
Jul 25, 2026
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89
Research co-authored by an Oklahoma Museum of Natural History curator, her graduate student and an international team of scientists has shed new light on the evolutionary "toolkit" animals use to survive environmental change.
Plants & Animals
Jul 20, 2026
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23
Scientists have made many advances using traditional CRISPR technology, especially in medicine, but they are now seeking ways to create genuinely new gene-editing enzymes with properties that have not already evolved naturally. ...
Within every muscle of every living species with a backbone, a protein called myosin tugs on a partner protein to generate a muscle contraction. This function, discovered in mammals a century ago, has been presumed by scientists ...
Evolution
Jul 14, 2026
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26
Northwestern Medicine scientists have identified a novel mechanism used by the bacteria responsible for gonorrhea to evade immune detection and achieve widespread infection, according to a recent study published in the Proceedings ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 11, 2026
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11
New research finds that the "silent" mutant male crickets of Hawaii, first observed more than 20 years ago, have now become well established across the Hawaiian islands, and that the reproductive challenges caused by a lack ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2026
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6
Researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have—in collaboration with colleagues from Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich—analyzed the complex biochemical processes that bacteria use to insert proteins ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 4, 2026
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60
In the study of bacteria, a longstanding dogma has held that two molecular machines—RNA polymerase, which leads the way in transcribing DNA into RNA, and ribosomes, which bring up the rear translating RNA into proteins—worked ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 2, 2026
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10
Is it possible to study the history of viruses that emerged several hundred million years ago? An international team of INRAE and CIRAD researchers answered this question by exploring plant genomes to find the molecular fossils ...
Evolution
Jul 2, 2026
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28
All living organisms are known to inherit genes, DNA sequences that contain instructions for producing specific proteins and performing biological functions, from their parents. In some cases, however, genes can also shift ...
