Thursday, March 02, 2006
A new tree of life allows a closer look at the origin of species
A new tree of life allows a closer look at the origin of species: "In 1870 the German scientist Ernst Haeckel mapped the evolutionary relationships of plants and animals in the first 'tree of life'. Since then scientists have continuously redrawn and expanded the tree adding microorganisms and using modern molecular data, yet, many parts of the tree have remained unclear. Now a group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg has developed a computational method that resolves many of the open questions and produced what is likely the most accurate tree ever. The study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Science, gives some intriguing insights into the origins of bacteria and the last common universal ancestor of all life on earth today."
technorati tags: haeckel, tree+of+life, ancestor, plants, animals, microorganisms, biology, molecular, origin, species
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