Open Questions: Molecular Evolution
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Prerequisites: Molecular biology and genetics
See also: Evolutionary theory --
Evolutionary milestones --
Evolutionary history of animals --
Developmental biology
Site indexes
Sites with general resources
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Molecular Evolution & Organelle Genomics
- Contains information and databases of interest to specialists
in molecular evolution.
-
Web Resources in Molecular Evolution and Systematics
- External links, mostly for specialists, collected by
Kent Holsinger.
Surveys, overviews, tutorials
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Molecular evolution
- Article from
Wikipedia.
See also
Neutral theory of molecular evolution.
-
Population genetics
- Article from
Wikipedia.
See also
Genetic drift.
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Cladistics
- Article from
Wikipedia.
- Mining the Mouse
John Travis
Science Week, February 22, 2003, pp. 122-123
- It has been 75 million years since the common ancestor of
mice and humans lived, yet the two species still share many common DNA
sequences. Even more surprisingly, over half of these
sequences don't seem to encode proteins, so their actual
function is unknown.
[References]
- Why the Y is So Weird
Karin Jegalian; Bruce T. Lahn
Scientific American, February 2001, pp. 56-61
- The Y chromosome has been a puzzle for its seeming lack of
genetic function. Recent work tracing the evolutionary development
of the Y chromosome shows it does more than previously
supposed.
- Deciphering the Code of Life
Francis S. Collins; Karin G. Jegalian
Scientific American, December 1999, pp. 86-91
- The combination of detailed maps of the genomes of all forms of
life and steadily increasing knowledge of the mechanisms of life
at the molecular level will help answer some of the oldest and
most important questions about life itself.
- The Evolution of Hemoglobin
Ross Hardison
American Scientist, March-April 1999, pp. 126-137
- The origins of the protein hemoglobin are found very early
in the history of life. Studies of its evolutionary history shed
light on the regulations of genes.
- DNA Microsatellites: Agents of Evolution?
E. Richard Moxon, Christopher Wills
Scientific American, January 1999, pp. 94-99
- Repetitive DNA sequences are not necessarily "junk" but
may have evolutionary significance.
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The Molecular Anatomy of an Ancient Adaptive Event
Antony M. Dean
American Scientist, January-February 1998, pp. 26-37
- A family of enzymes is studied to determine the way in which
changes in just a few amino acids have a large evolutionary
significance.
- Y?
Peter Radetsky
Discover, November 1997, pp. 88-93
- The Y chromosome, present only in the cells of male mammals,
has been found to have a function besides sex determination. It
also regulates sperm production, and has an interesting evolutionary
history.
- Roger Lewin -- Patterns in Evolution: The New Molecular View
Scientific American Library, 1999
- The author provides an introduction for the general reader to
the subject of molecular evolution that does not skimp on technical
details. It outlines the molecular biology background and goes on
to explain such topics as how species are classified, the puzzle
of genetic variation within species, the "evolutionary clock",
and how these findings can be applied to fields like ecology
and anthropology.
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Copyright © 2002 by Charles Daney, All Rights Reserved