strain
edyong | December 31, 2009If you search for decent definitions of evolution, the chances are that you'll see genes mentioned somewhere. The American Heritage Dictionary talks about natural selection acting on "genetic variation", Wikipedia discusses "change in the genetic material of a population... through successive generations", and TalkOrigins talks about changes that are inherited "via the genetic material". But, as the Year of Darwin draws to a close, a new study suggests that all of these definitions are too narrow.
Jiali Li from the Scripps Institute in Florida has found that prions - the infectious proteins…