A research team has clarified a mechanism of how retrotransposons, genetic elements that can 'jump around' chromosomes and are known drivers of evolution, preferentially insert in the centromere. A ...

Phenotypic convergence, the appearance of similar forms in independent lineages, provides an opportunity for testing the predictability of genetic evolution. Similar phenotypes in different lineages ...

Future Microbiol. 2012;7(11):1283-1296. Although gene loss can be mediated by insertion of transposable elements, gene loss via deletion, sometimes subsequent to gene disruption, is another major ...

Elucidating how body parts in their earliest recognizable form are assembled in tetrapods during development is essential for understanding the nature of morphological evolution. Researchers found in ...

The sequencing of the genomes of a spider from the mainland (Dysdera catalonica, left) and one from the Canary Islands (Dysdera tilosensis, right) opens a new perspective for understanding how genome ...

Skeletons of the early horse-relative Eohippus (left) and modern Equus (right). From Animals of the Past by Lucas. During the early 20th century many biologists were considering a variety of ...

From the slime coating slugs to the saliva in our mouths, many slippery bodily fluids contain mucus. So how did this marvel of biology evolve? In mammals, the answer is many times, and often in a ...

Evolution of bacterial pathogen populations has been detected in a variety of ways including phenotypic tests, such as metabolic activity, reaction to antisera and drug resistance and genotypic tests ...