A new Yale study provides a fuller picture of the genetic changes that shaped the evolution of the human brain, and how the process differed from the evolution of chimpanzees. For the study, published ...

Genetic sharing among evolutionary neighbors all happens through hybrids: the offspring produced when individuals from two species mate. Famous hybrids include offspring between polar and grizzly ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

Evolution is a complicated thing. Much of modern evolutionary biology seeks to reconcile the seeming randomness of the forces behind the process — how mutations occur, for example — with the ...

In 1859, Charles Darwin coined the term “living fossils” to describe organisms that show little species diversity or physical differences from their ancestors in the fossil record. In a new study, ...

The movement of genetic material between organisms that aren’t directly related is a significant driver of evolution, especially among single-celled organisms like bacteria and archaea. A team led by ...

From popular culture to the dark corners of the internet, there are many claims about “fundamental” differences between people on the basis of gender, racial or ethnic groups, sexuality, or other ...

Protein evolution plays a key role in many biological processes that are essential for life – but what does it have to do with physics? Schematic overview of procedure used to generate simulated ...

An updated evolutionary model shows that living systems evolve in a split-and-hit-the-gas dynamic, where new lineages appear in sudden bursts rather than during a long marathon of gradual changes.

Since ancient times, scientists and philosophers have pondered the fundamental question of what makes some organisms male and some female. Some hypotheses were at least plausible—Greek philosopher ...