Gayathri Vaidyanathan ::

Evolution: A One-Way Street

Since Darwin, evolution has been in vogue. Most scientists take it on principle that accumulation of mutations in DNA over million of years leads to new life forms.

But a question that has intrigued researchers for some time is whether organisms can go back to their ancestral forms. Is evolution is reversible? Conventional wisdom—known in the sphere of evolutionary biology as “Dollo’s law” after pre-eminent dinosaur researcher Louis Dollo—says no. A recent study published in the journal Nature has elegantly confirmed that evolution is a one-way street by studying the process at the molecular level.

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