More than 2.3 million ancient genetic switches discovered in plants reveal how key growth controls endured 300 million years ...

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

When Charles Darwin first proposed how evolution works in 1859, it seemed plausible. Tiny changes stack up over time, eventually leading a species to become something entirely different. Aside from ...

A lost chapter in human evolution has been revealed after an analysis of modern DNA found that we come from not one but two ancestral populations—ones that drifted apart and later reconnected long ...

Scientists may have a step forward in understanding how life on our planet came to exist. The mystery of how tiny molecules of RNA came to be enclosed within membranes, forming the very first cells, ...

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and UCL have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through ...

A giant DNA virus pulled from a Japanese freshwater pond is forcing scientists to rethink how complex cells first acquired their defining feature: the nucleus. Named ushikuvirus, the newly ...