evolution

An interview with the developmental biologist Cassandra Extavour on the origins of multicellular organisms and the evolution of cooperation.

A computational study reveals surprising flexibility hidden within metabolic networks, providing new evidence for an evolutionary concept called exaptation.

Machine learning techniques are helping scientists pinpoint the mutations that allow bird and pig viruses to infect humans.

Population expansion may be a major driver in the evolution of cooperation, with implications for new antibiotics, cancer treatments and perhaps even human behavior.

Scientists are exploring how organisms can evolve elaborate structures without Darwinian selection.

Symbiotic bacteria that dwell within insect cells are intricately intertwined with their hosts, prompting scientists to question when these bacteria stop being bona fide organisms and become part of the cell.

More genetic data is available than ever before to help build evolutionary trees, but scientists are finding that different genes even in the same organism can tell conflicting stories.

Game theorists have developed a new model of communication among animals. It suggests evolution will produce a situation in which members of a species are honest most of the time, but not always.