How a beneficial gut microbe adapted to breast milk

It is now well documented that the best way for an infant’s gut (largely sterile at birth) to get populated by the bacterial components of a healthy microbiota is through its mother’s milk. Over 700 species of bacteria have been found in breast milk...

Why resistance develops to antibiotics but not vaccines

David Kennedy and Andrew Read have kindly supplied the following teaser for their latest paper in Proceedings Of The Royal Society B. As they point out, this “armchair speculation” has elicited a gamut of reactions ranging from awe to scorn and so we are...
How “Adaptation and Natural Selection” Changed Two Lives

How “Adaptation and Natural Selection” Changed Two Lives

In 1957. George C. Williams published a seminal paper that initiated new thinking about core evolutionary medicine topics, including the origins of menopause and aging. Nine years later he published Adaptation and Selection (ANS), a book that changed the course of...