There is a mature literature on evolution and aging intended to explain how, despite selection for the morphological, metabolic, physiological, and behavioral prerequisites for survival and procreation, with the passage of time bodies deteriorate ultimately resulting...
Epistasis refers to the influence of one genomic mutation or variant on the phenotypic effects of another mutation or variant. Based on available evidence and theory, this phenomenon has a major influence on evolutionary trajectories for organisms of all...
Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular protozoan parasite that infects many different vertebrate species asexually and undergoes a sexual cycle after infecting cats (http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/, 2013). Parasite oocysts are potentially introduced...
This past December, science writer David Dobbs published an essay (2013) in the online magazine Aeon (aeon.co/magazine/) that purports to explain why the ‘selfish gene’ concept is outmoded and should be retired. It elicited a good deal of commentary, and in...
Geneticists have recognized for some time that many genes exhibit pleiotropy, meaning that one mutation can manifest in two or more distinguishable phenotypic effects. In a fascinating study recently published in Science [2014 Jan 10;343(6167):152-7....
