A vast stretch of islands across the South Pacific holds one of the oldest human stories on Earth. For tens of thousands of ...

For decades, scientists have known that bacteria can exchange genetic material, in a process called horizontal gene transfer. This allows bacteria to rapidly evolve new traits, such as antibiotic ...

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 ...

Some 4,000 years ago, as ancient civilizations such as the Minoans in Crete and the Neo-Sumerian Empire in Mesopotamia were shaping cultures in Europe and the Middle East, human biology itself was ...

In cancer research, one person's junk is increasingly becoming another person's treasure. Scientists have uncovered new evidence showing how recently evolved "junk DNA" genetic elements can become ...

Researchers have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained ...

Scientists at the University of Vienna, Austria, have screened great ape specimens obtained from natural history museums to identify DNA viruses. This groundbreaking study provides unique insights ...