There is reason to believe that among the key traits that distinguish humans from the primates that are phylogenetically closest to us are cognitive and social abilities as exemplified by language and diverse aspects of social interaction and cultural expression. It...
Identifying broadly neutralizing antibodies against infectious agents such as influenza A viruses, HIV, and Plasmodium falciparum that display impressive degrees of antigenic variation is a major focus of investigators developing therapeutics and vaccines for...
An article published online at the Nature web site on November 24 (Chou et al., 2014) presents a fascinating study of examples in which bacterial genes have found their way to a number of distinct eukaryotic lineages including ticks and mites, gastropod (e.g.,...
Biomedical scientists and biologists routinely consider how selection shapes the structure and function of proteins of interest. Less commonly, I suspect, do we consider how selection for attributes other than protein structure and function can favor or disfavor...