A major evolutionary theory says most genetic changes don’t really matter, but new evidence suggests that’s not true. Researchers found that helpful mutations happen surprisingly often. The twist is ...

The established conservation practice of relocating animals from large, genetically diverse populations to small communities of inbred endangered species may risk introducing more damaging than ...

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 ...

Genetic mutations that happen in a gene called apolipoprotein E (APOE) have long been known to have a significant impact on the risk of Alzheimer's disease. Variants of the gene are have different ...

Scientists studying how microbes evolve have long assumed that nearly all new genetic mutations get passed down at a predictable pace and usually without either helping or hurting the microbe in ...

People typically think about evolution as a linear process where, within a species, the classic adage of "survival of the fittest" is constantly at play. New DNA mutations arise and get passed from ...