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 ...

When the theory of evolution was put forth by Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin in 1859, biological science was in its embryonic stage. Naturalists (the precursors of biologists) had been content with ...

For years, the story of recent human evolution looked relatively quiet. Scientists studying ancient human DNA had found only a few dozen clear cases where natural selection appeared to strongly favor ...

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 ...