In the mutation accumulation experiment, amoebae were allowed to reproduce until they formed a visible plaque, and then one was picked at random and carried to a new plate where it was allowed to ...

A microscopic flaw in the brain’s cellular scaffolding can shape brain size for life.

Scientists have traced a devastating pattern of brain cell loss in a handful of families to a single, ultra-rare mutation that sabotages one of the brain’s key protective enzymes. The discovery not ...

Experiments on an ultra-rare genetic mutation that causes neurodegeneration in children have helped uncover a new mechanism by which brain cells die. The findings raise the possibility that similar ...

Scientists studying how microbes evolve have long assumed that nearly all new genetic mutations get passed down at a predictable pace and usually without either helping or hurting the microbe in ...

In the 1940s, the famous Luria–Delbrück experiment showed that bacteria evolve resistance to drugs they'd never encountered thanks to a random mutational process. When you purchase through links on ...

A series of experiments reveal that a germline mutation of the enzyme topoisomerase II B affects the movement of proteins in the nuclei of cells with this mutation The processes of DNA replication and ...

For a cell to become cancerous, it must cross the threshold of immortality—that is, it must transform into an infinitely dividing machine. Many cells like those in the skin cancer melanoma are thought ...