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 ...

In the children’s game telephone, a whispered phrase like “I ate a pear” can quickly become “I hate bears” as it moves down a line of players. As genes are passed down from parents to offspring, they ...

Scientists showed that fixed mutations within a viral population most likely stem from how easy it is to acquire that mutation (i.e., mutation accessibility) rather than just its benefit. The ...

The influenza (flu) virus is constantly undergoing a process of evolution and adaptation through acquiring new mutations. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have added a new layer of ...

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 ...

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 ...

Factoring out nucleotide-level mutation biases from antibody language models dramatically improves prediction of functional mutation effects while reducing computational cost by orders of magnitude.

(Memphis, Tenn.—July 28, 2023) The influenza (flu) virus is constantly undergoing a process of evolution and adaptation through acquiring new mutations. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research ...