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PRINCETON (US) - "Is evolution predictable? To a surprising extent the answer is 'yes'," says Princeton professor Peter Andolfatto. New research by Andolfatto and colleagues published in the journal suggests that knowledge of a species' genes-and how certain external conditions affect the proteins encoded by those genes-could be used to determine a predictable evolutionary pattern driven by outside factors.

This is an interesting post about the accuracy of the molecular clock in estimating speciation events particularly humans. There is a link to info on Fossil dating .

By Matthew Cobb Some religious folk accept that micro-evolution can be observed - shifts in allele frequency due to natural selection - but argue vociferously that no one has ever seen one species evolve out of another. We know that one reason for this apparent lack of evidence for speciation is due to the time-scales...

"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" Dorothy's question to the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz elicited one of the movie's most delightful songs, in which her straw-filled friend assured her that, among other things, he could "think of things I'd never thunk before." But...

Cross-posted at Denim and Tweed. In the course of adaptive evolution - evolutionary change via natural selection - gene variants that increase the odds of survival and reproduction become more common in a population as a whole. When we're only talking about a single gene variant with a strong beneficial effect, that makes for a...

This is an interesting post about coevolution.