Randy Nesse recently reviewed a new book (“The Evolution of Obesity” by Power and Schulkin) on weight regulation [Nature, 2009)]. In the course of the review, Nesse took note of the authors’ evidence that leptin-associated function is highly...
Geneticists and evolutionary biologists have for decades embraced the view, no doubt reinforced by terminology such as “silent” (i.e., synonymous) mutations, that for protein-encoding genes, genotype determines phenotype through control of the amino acid...
Biological evolution is, obviously, a historical (i.e., time-dependent) process. However, the importance to evolution of dynamics occurring on multiple time scales is still being delineated. I recently attended a symposium sponsored by the Case Department of...
There are few examples of the power of natural selection more globally relevant than those pertaining to the influenza A viruses, which, along with the influenza B and C viruses, constitute the orthomyxoviruses. Influenza A viruses kill thousands of people every...
This week marks the 35th anniversary of the landmark paper, in Nature [248:701-702, 1974, April 19], by Rolf Zinkernagel and Peter Doherty that established the principle that T lymphocytes [murine cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) in this study] exhibit specificity for...
