EvoBIO

EvoBIO We are educating the world on evolutionary biology.

The aristocratic Velociraptor wishes you a jolly good day!~ Ryan A. Chavez
09/01/2026

The aristocratic Velociraptor wishes you a jolly good day!

~ Ryan A. Chavez

😉~ Ryan A. Chavez
08/20/2026

😉

~ Ryan A. Chavez

Want to see something cool? This is an alignment of the conserved homologous region of human PAX6 and Drosophila eyeless...
08/18/2026

Want to see something cool? This is an alignment of the conserved homologous region of human PAX6 and Drosophila eyeless. These sequences have been highly conserved by purifying selection since the last common ancestor of flies and humans, over 600 million years ago. PAX6/eyeless is a master regulatory gene that plays a crucial role in initiating and directing eye development. 🧬🪰👨‍🦱

~ Ryan A. Chavez

It's true.~ Ryan A. Chavez
08/03/2026

It's true.
~ Ryan A. Chavez

This remarkable event is known as the endosymbiotic event, a turning point in the history of life on Earth. It took plac...
07/17/2026

This remarkable event is known as the endosymbiotic event, a turning point in the history of life on Earth. It took place roughly 1.5 to 2 billion years ago, when ancestral cells engulfed free-living bacteria, eventually giving rise to the mitochondria in our cells today.

~ Ryan A. Chavez

Did you know that if a species were to theoretically evolve too quickly, they can go extinct? If the species evolves too...
07/01/2026

Did you know that if a species were to theoretically evolve too quickly, they can go extinct? If the species evolves too quickly, their genetic load can become too high, and a phenomenon called "error catastrophe" can occur, where deleterious mutations accumulate in the genome faster than they can be removed by natural selection. But you might reply, "Well, HIV evolves extremely fast—why hasn't HIV gone extinct?" Well, this rule mostly applies to animals.

HIV actually gets around this error catastrophe wall. HIV's mutation rate is so high that it increases the genetic load, reducing the average fitness of the viral population. The virus operates near the threshold of error catastrophe, a delicate mutation-selection balance. However, HIV compensates by producing massive numbers of virions, ensuring that even if most are defective. A small fraction remains highly fit. This strategy allows the virus to maintain high overall fitness and makes HIV remarkably adaptable and persistent!

~ Ryan A. Chavez

(Image credits: alionaprof/Shutterstock)

06/23/2026

The only real critique of evolutionary theory that I've encountered was from an early television actor named Milton Berle:

“If evolution really
works, how come
mothers only have
two hands?”

~ Ryan A. Chavez

Whales and hippos are closely related! They share a common ancestor that lived about 60 million years ago. Whales and hi...
06/08/2026

Whales and hippos are closely related! They share a common ancestor that lived about 60 million years ago. Whales and hippos both belong to the order Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates). Both groups communicate using sounds underwater.

~ Ryan A. Chavez

~ Ryan A. Chavez
06/05/2026

~ Ryan A. Chavez

🏳️‍🌈
06/03/2026

🏳️‍🌈

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