ANN ARBOR—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 ...

While evolution involves changes in organisms that we can observe, they undergo evolution at a deeper level, too. That is, changes affect the "letters" (four different types of chemical units) in the ...

“One of the reasons for the popularity of the neutral theory was that it made things a lot easier,” said Andrew Kern, a population geneticist now at the University of Oregon, who contributed an ...

Molecular evolution investigates the processes that drive changes in genetic material over time. It encompasses the generation of mutations—whether through DNA replication errors, damage or other ...

Some of nature's mysteries have kept scientists busy for decades—for example, the processes that drive evolution. The question of whether certain differences between and within species are caused by ...

Biologists are closing in on a puzzle that seems to turn classic evolutionary logic inside out, yet may be so common that it deserves to be called a new rule of life. Instead of always purging harmful ...