A genomic atlas of Nematostella vectensis reveals how primitive animals created multiple cell types millions of years ago, ...

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 ...

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 ...

The stray dogs that roam the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have become unlikely protagonists in a scientific debate about how life ...

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 ...

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, ...

Biologists are closing in on a puzzle that seems to turn classic evolutionary logic inside out, yet may be so common that it deserves to be called a new rule of life. Instead of always purging harmful ...

Humans have been getting infected by ancient bacteria and viruses for at least 37,000 years. Now, for the first time, pathogen DNA has uncovered a pivotal disease "turning point" that happened 6,500 ...