The story of life’s beginnings gets stranger when you look closely at viruses. These tiny entities seem to sit at the edge of biology.

Viruses acquire genes from eukaryotes — organisms whose cells store their DNA in a nucleus — and use them for their own function. Conversely, eukaryotes acquire genes from viruses to bring new ...

In the fall of 2019, the world began one of the largest evolutionary biology experiments in modern history. Somewhere near the city of Wuhan in eastern China, a coronavirus acquired the ability to ...