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New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life
...in translation, the synthesis of proteins — a finding that came as a shock. “It appears that giant viruses are as complex as living organisms,” said Chantal Abergel, an evolutionary...
Viruses Have a Secret, Altruistic Social Life
...at a severe disadvantage under natural selection. William D. Hamilton, one of the 20th century’s most prominent evolutionary theorists, developed a mathematical theory to explain the evolution of altruism through...
How Neutral Theory Altered Ideas About Biodiversity
...College London. Kimura’s neutral theory of molecular evolution sparked debate because it seemed to water down the influence of selection. But the genomics revolution of the late 20th century and...
In Test Tubes, RNA Molecules Evolve Into a Tiny Ecosystem
...world. These studies were the world’s first experimental demonstration of Darwinian evolution at the molecular level — “evolution by natural selection, survival of the fittest,” said Eugene Koonin, a National...
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes
...flaw in the way many people were thinking about evolution. It is easy to assume that evolution is synonymous with natural selection, the force that weeds out less advantageous forms...
What Can Birdsong Teach Us About Human Language?
...Yeah, so we call it parallel evolution or independent evolution. LEVIN: That just strikes me as huge. JARVIS: Yes, yes it does. LEVIN: I think that’s good for astrobiology, that...
A New Idea for How to Assemble Life
...not their components.” To understand how assembly processes operate within these notional universes, consider the problem of Darwinian evolution. Conventionally, evolution is something that “just happened” once replicating molecules arose...
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer
...the growth of embryonic stem cells. Lynch presented his work at the Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology meeting in Calgary in August 2017, and it is currently posted on...
Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be Essential for Life
...and a landmass — all of which exchange and circulate material — as a prerequisite for life. Yet understanding how plate tectonics affects evolution — and whether it is a...