For decades, scientists have known that bacteria can exchange genetic material, in a process called horizontal gene transfer.

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 ...

For decades, large stretches of human DNA were dismissed as "junk" and considered to serve no real purpose. In a new study published in Cell Genomics, researchers at Lund University in Sweden show ...

Are humans evolving more through culture than DNA? A new study explores how medicine, technology, and institutions may guide ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

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 ...

Viruses are often seen only as killers—responsible for diseases like HIV, Ebola, and influenza. But what if we told you that without them, you wouldn’t exist? Ancient viruses shaped the evolution of ...

The unusual DNA of a particular type of spider is fascinating scientists, as they think it may hold the key to diverse ...