Research is shaking up how we think about evolution, suggesting there's a level of predictability influenced by genes and genetic history.

In Lake Malawi, hundreds of species of cichlid fish have evolved with astonishing speed, offering scientists a rare opportunity to study how biodiversity arises.

From epic poetry to game shows, from Stone Age axes to spaceflight, humans have the most complex cultures of any species on Earth. Since the time of Darwin, scientists have suspected that this culture ...

Olfactory receptor (OR) genes, representing the largest multigene family in mammalian genomes, have undergone extensive evolutionary modifications characterised by dynamic patterns of gene duplication ...

Findings suggest that new genes can form by repurposing fragments of ancestral genes while incorporating entirely new coding regions (the protein-coding parts of the DNA). This innovative concept ...

New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered a crucial piece in the puzzle of how all animals with a spine—including all mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians—evolved. In a paper ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

Two of the traits that set modern humans apart from non-human primates are taller stature and a higher basal metabolic rate. Researchers have identified a genetic variant that contributed to the ...

“This DNA repair and replication activity supports a fascinating mechanism called premeiotic endoreplication, a process through which the snake duplicates its chromosomes before dividing them, ...