Prof. Adi Livnat (Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology) and scientists from Ghana made headlines when they called into question a central premise of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Darwin believed that mutations are random and accidental, and natural selection favors such accidents. Using a new method of detecting de novo mutations – mutations that arise spontaneously in offspring without being inherited from either parent – Livnat and his colleagues found that a genetic mutation that protects against malaria was more prevalent in Africans in comparison with Europeans. This finding led the team to conclude that some genes may have adaptive properties in populations specific to regions where protection is needed. “The results suggest that … mutation-specific origination rates can respond in the long-term to specific environmental pressures,” explains Livnat. The study, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, was recently published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal Genome Research. | MORE ON THIS STORY IN THE JERUSALEM POST

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