Molecular Clock

Real World Example

Imagine trying to figure out how long ago two friends stopped hanging out by looking at the number of unread messages they have from each other. Just as the accumulation of unread messages can indicate how long it’s been since they last communicated, the molecular clock uses DNA mutation rates to estimate how long two species have been evolving independently. In this analogy, the unread messages are like DNA mutations: both accumulate over time, allowing us to measure the passage of time since the friends (or species) parted ways.