New research challenges the long-standing idea that most fixed genetic mutations are neutral. For many years, scientists studying evolution have believed that most genetic changes influencing how ...

As mutation affects essentially every aspect of biology, the development of a unifying theory for mutation-rate evolution is highly desirable. There is much to be explained. For although the ...

Environmental variability has long been postulated as a major selective force in the evolution of large brains. However, assembling evidence for this hypothesis has proved difficult. Here, by ...

Identifying complex mutations in the structure of an organism's genome has been difficult. But ecologists and evolutionary biologists have applied new methods of genome analysis to identify these ...

A recent statistical study has revealed some of the constraints and directions in the evolution of the structure and function of proteins. Better models of protein structural dynamics may allow ...

Abstract: We examine the impact of temporal variation on adaptive evolution in “sink” environments, where a species encounters conditions outside its niche. Sink populations persist because of ...

Saliva is a bodily fluid most of us take for granted despite the significant roles it plays: aiding in digestion, maintaining ...

Many fossil assemblages are time-averaged, with multiple generations of organisms mixed into a single stratigraphic horizon. A time-averaged sample of a taxon should be more variable than a ...

In the children’s game telephone, a whispered phrase like “I ate a pear” can quickly become “I hate bears” as it moves down a line of players. As genes are passed down from parents to offspring, they ...

A new study has shown that person-to-person variation in antibody immunity plays a key role in shaping which influenza (flu) strains dominate in a population. The work, published today as a Reviewed ...