Revisiting Moran 1996

In a paper published in PNAS in 1996, Nancy Moran showed that endosymbiotic bacterial lineages showed faster rates of evolution of 16S rDNA and increased rate of fixation of deleterious mutations, compared to free-living lineages. These results, Moran concluded, were evidence for the Muller's ratchet phenomenon in combination with mutational bias. Twenty-three years after the …

Revisiting Frank 1995

In a paper published in Nature in 1995, Steven Frank proposed a simple model to show how "mutual policing" can suppress competition and ensure "fairness" in reproduction, in the evolution of cooperative groups. Twenty-two tears after the paper was published. I asked Steven Frank about his motivation to do the work presented in this paper, …