Beneficial mutations happen quite frequently, but the world changes too fast for them to stick.

For a long time, evolutionary biologists have thought that the genetic mutations that drive the evolution of genes and proteins are largely neutral: they're neither good nor bad, but just ordinary ...

Mutation dynamics in bacterial populations underpin the generation of genetic diversity that drives adaptation, speciation and the emergence of antimicrobial resistance. Spontaneous base substitutions ...

A groundbreaking study published in this week’s issue of PNAS by scientists from Israel and Ghana shows that an evolutionarily significant mutation in the human APOL1 gene arises not randomly but more ...

Today, biologists taking a closer look at the animals located inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), which is about the size of Yosemite National Park, and investigating how decades of radiation ...

As language models learn to interpret words in a sentence, protein language models learn how amino acids work together within a protein. Konstantina Tzavella, who used artificial intelligence in her ...

Genes are short sections of DNA that determine an animal’s traits—everything from coat color and claw strength to body shape and health. But sometimes, these genes mutate. And while the word itself ...

A new study tracking thousands of B cells across more than 100 germinal centers in mice reveals how the system consistently ...

Tobacco smoking is linked to specific genetic mutations in MDS, affecting chromatin modification and RNA splicing pathways. A dose-response relationship exists, with higher smoking intensity ...

A key step in the origin of many pandemics occurs when an animal-borne virus infects humans and then evolves to spread more ...