This Mutation Math Shows How Life Keeps on Evolving

Natural selection has been a cornerstone of evolutionary theory ever since Darwin. Yet mathematical models of natural selection have often been dogged by an awkward problem that seemed to make evolution harder than biologists understood it to be. In a new paper appearing in Communications Biology, a multidisciplinary team of scientists in Austria and the United States identify a possible way out of the conundrum. Their answer still needs to be checked against what happens in nature, but in any case, it could be useful for biotechnology researchers and others who need to promote natural selection under artificial circumstances. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences. A central premise of the theory of evolution through natural selection is that when beneficial mutations appear, they should spread throughout a population.