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New Bird Species Arises From Hybrids, as Scientists Watch
The rapid, unorthodox emergence of a new finch in the Galápagos hints that speciation isn’t rare. New hybrid species may quietly appear and disappear without anyone noticing.
Solution: ‘Triumph or Cooperation in Game Theory and Evolution’
How well does the Nash equilibrium concept from game theory map to the real world?
What Bacteria Can Tell Us About Human Evolution
To discover our species’ deep history and to shape its future health, we should learn from the microbes that accompanied us on our evolutionary journey.
How to Triumph and Cooperate in Game Theory and Evolution
In applying game theory to biology and human behavior, have scientists focused too much on competition over cooperation?
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors.
Life’s First Molecule Was Protein, Not RNA, New Model Suggests
Which mattered first at the dawn of life: proteins or nucleic acids? Proteins may have had the edge if a theorized process let them grow long enough to become self-replicating catalysts.
Insects Conquered a Watery Realm With Just Two New Genes
Minor genetic changes can have big evolutionary consequences. When a gene duplication gave some water striders a novel leg part, it opened up a new world for them.
Simple Bacteria Offer Clues to the Origins of Photosynthesis
Studies of the energy-harvesting proteins in primitive cells suggest that key features of photosynthesis might have evolved a billion years earlier than scientists thought.
Solution: ‘Are Genes Selfish or Cooperative?’
Puzzle solvers rediscovered a simple mathematical result of Mendelian genetics and weighed in on a Richard Dawkins metaphor.