The study of experimental evolution in Escherichia coli has provided unprecedented insights into the mechanisms of adaptive mutations, elucidating how populations diverge and optimise their fitness ...

Scientists report adaptive divergence in cryptic color pattern is underlain by two distinct, complex chromosomal rearrangements, where millions of bases of DNA were flipped backwards and moved from ...

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED That concept was so powerful that we ...

A major evolutionary theory says most genetic changes don’t really matter, but new evidence suggests that’s not true. Researchers found that helpful mutations happen surprisingly often. The twist is ...

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 ...

For more than half a century, many biologists have leaned on the neutral theory of molecular evolution to explain how DNA and proteins change over time. The idea grew from early work in the 1960s, ...

Understanding the material basis of adaptive evolution has been a central goal in biology dating back to at least the time of Darwin. One focus of current debates is whether adaptive evolution relies ...

A peculiar study into malaria resistance in humans, and where and how it occurs in the population, has unexpectedly spurred a re-evaluation of the neo-Darwinist understanding of evolution.

Human skin is home to millions of microbes. One of these microbes, Staphylococcus aureus, is an opportunistic pathogen that can invade patches of skin affected by eczema, also known as atopic ...

It’s flu season. You’ve probably already gotten your annual flu shot, perhaps coupled with another COVID-19 booster. For viruses like influenza that causes the flu, updated vaccines are required each ...