ScienceVerseLearning path: Evolution
The concepts to learn before Evolution, in order. Each step links to its page and, where one exists, its quiz.
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Your path
- DNADirect prerequisite
Deoxyribonucleic acid: the molecule that carries the genetic instructions used in the growth, development and reproduction of all known living organisms. DNA is shaped as a double helix of two strands, each made of a sugar-phosphate backbone with attached bases — adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C) — that pair specifically (A with T, G with C) to hold the two strands together. Its structure was determined by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, building on X-ray diffraction data produced by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.
- EvolutionYour goal
The process by which populations of living organisms change in their heritable characteristics over successive generations. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace proposed natural selection as its principal mechanism: individuals with heritable traits better suited to their environment tend to survive and reproduce more successfully, so those traits become more common in the population over time.