When our distant ancestors first traded nomadic life for farming, villages, and permanent homes, you might assume that the ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

Many people are familiar with the concept of natural selection and “survival of the fittest.” While modern humans may look ...

When most people think about natural selection, they imagine individuals competing with one another: The fastest animal escapes predators, the strongest plant produces more seeds, and the most ...

Most of us know that as living things evolve, they take on traits that help them thrive in their home environments. But how are certain traits "chosen" for future generations, and how are others cast ...

Learn more about new research that analyzed 16,000 ancient genomes and discovered that natural selection hasn’t slowed down.

In natural populations, the mechanisms of evolution do not act in isolation. This is crucially important to conservation geneticists, who grapple with the implications of these evolutionary processes ...

Some researchers hold that evolution hasn’t much altered humans in the past 10,000 years. A new analysis of ancient DNA ...

Diseases have the potential to shape human evolution, leaving an indelible mark on the genetic code of generations to come. And that’s exactly what happened in South America, finds a study published ...

Red hair becoming more common due to natural selection, study shows - Immunity to HIV and resistance to leprosy were also ...

Another complication is that sustained genetic variation does not emerge exclusively as a result of natural selection.

The common view of natural selection is based solely on the individual: A trait allows an organism to out-compete its rivals and is thus passed down to its offspring. To suggest otherwise can provoke ...