For a long time, evolutionary biologists have thought that the genetic mutations that drive the evolution of genes and proteins are largely neutral: they're neither good nor bad, but just ordinary ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: In the 1960s, Kimura’s neutral theory revolutionized molecular biology by arguing most DNA changes are random, not adaptive. A new study finds ...

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists from Israel and Ghana shows that an evolutionarily significant mutation in the human APOL1 gene arises not ...

Mutation dynamics and fitness effects lie at the heart of evolutionary change. Every generation, genomes accrue spontaneous alterations ranging from single-nucleotide substitutions to larger ...

How do cells know what they should become as the body develops? Biological development depends crucially on spatial patterns: the lines that eventually give rise to segments, organs, or markings like ...

In virtually every organism, the 20 amino acids that make up all proteins are encoded by 61 of the 64 possible triplet codons in DNA, with the remaining three codons serving as stop signs in protein ...

Researchers published a new study, “Ongoing chromothripsis underpins osteosarcoma genome complexity and clonal evolution,” in Cell that they say solves the mystery of what drives the genomic ...

Hopefully, you have already received your seasonal flu vaccine this year. These shots are highly effective at preventing illness, ultimately lowering the spread of the virus throughout the population.

Researchers at Scripps have created T7-ORACLE, a powerful new tool that speeds up evolution, allowing scientists to design and improve proteins thousands of times faster than nature. Using engineered ...

Groundbreaking research shows that as men age, harmful genetic mutations in sperm become more common—not just from random chance, but because some are naturally favored. Advanced sequencing revealed ...