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The discovery that viruses move between species unexpectedly often is rewriting ideas about their evolutionary history — and may have troubling implications for the threat from emerging diseases.
Nigel Goldenfeld applies the physics of condensed matter to understand how evolution sprinted for the earliest life — and then slowed down.
Hybrids, once treated as biological misfits, play a vital role in the evolution of many animal species. Now conservationists are trying to reconcile that truth with policies.
If DNA repair makes useful mutations more likely, it could accelerate cells’ adaptations to harsh environments.
Species gain and shed startling amounts of DNA as they evolve, and even genomes that look stable churn furiously. What does it mean?
The mathematical concept of parity and the fatal flaw of serial multiplication can help explain why having two sexes usually works better than having one or three.
Sex might help natural selection purge excessive mistakes from our genes.
Asexual reproduction can produce twice as many offspring as sexual reproduction without the hassle of finding and courting a mate. So why do most complex animals have two sexes? Why not three?
The evolutionary biologist Jessica Flack seeks the computational rules that groups of organisms use to solve problems.