Evolution on the table top

Evolution has taken another step away from being dismissed as “a theory” in the classroom, thanks to a new paper published this week in the online open-access journal PLoS Biology. The research article, by Brian Paegel and Gerald Joyce of The Scripps Research Institute, California, documents the automation of evolution: they have produced a computer-controlled system that can drive the evolution of improved RNA enzymes—biological catalysts—without human input. In the future, this “evolution-machine” could feature in the classroom as well as the lab, allowing students to watch evolution happen in their biology lessons.