Latest Antonis Rokas Stories

Since the days of Darwin, the "tree of life" has been the preeminent metaphor for the process of evolution, reflecting the gradual branching and changing of individual species.The discovery that a large cluster of genes appears to have jumped directly from one species of fungus to another, however, significantly strengthens the argument that a different metaphor, such as a mosaic, may be more appropriate."The fungi are telling us something important about evolution "¦...

The unexpected discovery of a new type of genetic variation suggests that natural selection "“ the force that drives evolution "“ is both more powerful and more complex than scientists have thought."We have discovered that natural selection can act not only on whole organisms and individual genes, but also on gene networks," says Antonis Rokas, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University and senior author of the paper reporting the discovery that was published in...

MADISON -- The animal kingdom's family tree is beginning to look a little bushy. Two decades ago, with the advent of methods to look at the family relationships of different organisms by analyzing DNA, scientists envisioned it would only be a matter of time before the various family trees for plants, animals, fungi and their kin would be resolved with genetic precision. And while molecular methods have had enormous success in ordering some branches in the tree of life -- mammals, for example...