Summary Of The Molecular Clock

The Molecular Clock and Species Divergence Article Summary

In 2010, Craig Venter and a team of biologists were the first to successfully sequence the human genome and the first to create a cell with a synthetic genome. Since this ground breaking scientific discovery, new genetic data has become increasingly available that allow biologists to take a closer look at complex evolutionary processes (Venter, 2010). One important instrument used for enhancing the study of evolutionary biology is the molecular clock, first proposed in the 1960s. Since the 1960s, the molecular clock hypothesis has been revised and has led to the development of a new hypothesized “relaxed” molecular clock. With the “relaxed” molecular clock, biologists can gain insights on organisms where biological characteristics cannot be found in fossil records. If the molecular clock hypothesis is valid, this tool can be essential for developing complete evolutionary time scales which enable biologists to fully understand evolutionary rates. The molecular clock is of interest to many scientists and it is one of the mos...