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.
Using an innovative combination of biochemical experiments and ultra-high-resolution microscopy, a research team at Kiel University has solved the long-standing mystery of how the bacterium B. subtilis regulates its cell ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 16, 2026
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16
Prime editing can potentially repair the vast majority of known disease-causing human mutations, but the technology, first developed in 2019, has not yet been widely used in the body, or in vivo, to treat genetic disease. ...
Biotechnology
Jun 15, 2026
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Long before vertebrates walked on land, millipedes had the place to themselves. Hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs arrived, these early decomposers were helping establish Earth's terrestrial ecosystems. But despite ...
Ecology
Jun 12, 2026
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125
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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41
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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44
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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10
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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21
Recent research showed that an artificially constructed self-replicating RNA system modeling primitive life at the origin of life evolved to become more prone to extinction under certain experimental conditions.
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 7, 2026
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23
A new study tracking thousands of B cells across more than 100 germinal centers in mice reveals how the system consistently produces highly effective antibodies. The findings overturn longstanding ideas about how germinal ...
Evolution
Jun 5, 2026
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52
A new study on multiple genomes from the extinct cave lion has discovered that it represented a highly distinct evolutionary lineage, which separated from modern lions more than a million years ago. The results also show ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 3, 2026
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