The Tree of Life Has Lost a Branch

[blobrana]

"Norwegian and Swiss biologists have made a startling discovery about the relationship between organisms that most people have never heard of. The Tree of Life must be re-drawn, textbooks need to be changed, and the discovery may also have significant impact on the development of medicines.
The discovery by Norwegian and Swiss researchers has gained attention from biologists worldwide. The findings come from the largest ever genetic comparison of higher life forms on the planet. Of 5000 genes examined, researchers identified 123 common genes from all known groups of organisms; these common genes have been studied more closely. The study has required long hours of work from the researchers and an enormous amount of computing resources—supplied through a large network of computers at the University of Oslo."

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[Enmos]

Awesome, thanks for posting !!

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Fascinating research, but I feel they are overplaying it (at this early stage). The demands that the ‘Tree of Life’ must be re-drawn and textbooks must be re-written are somewhat egotistical and premature. I think the publishers of textbooks will wait to see if the rest of the evolutionary biology community concurs before they rush to print new editions.

Here is my rewording of the opening paragraph from that link with my own emphasis added:

Norwegian and Swiss biologists have performed their own analyses and made a potentially startling discovery (if their analyses are correct) about the relationship between organisms that most people have never heard of. The Tree of Life may have to be must re-drawn, textbooks may have to be need to be changed, and the discovery may also have significant impact on the development of medicines.

And I dispute this statement:

…and this will both improve and simplify quite a bit of scientific work in the future.

Simply re-classifying organisms rarely has any significant impact on the nature of specific functional biological research. Re-classifying the organisms that I use in my research will not alter anything that I do. Their physiological, biochemical and genetic properties will not magically alter simply because humans choose to change their designation.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Norwegian and Swiss biologists have made a startling discovery. . . .

I'm sure they were startled but I doubt that it's going to turn science upside-down.

The Tree of Life must be re-drawn. . . .

And how many people have even heard of the Tree of Life?

. .. .textbooks need to be changed. . . .

This happens all the time. Try keeping up with geography.

. . . .and the discovery may also have significant impact on the development of medicines.

To the average person this is probably the most important thing in this whole article, but it doesn't explain this impact or even what their threshold is for "significance." Medicine is a rapidly evolving science that undergoes "significant" changes regularly.

The discovery by Norwegian and Swiss researchers has gained attention from biologists worldwide. The findings come from the largest ever genetic comparison of higher life forms on the planet. . . . The study has required long hours of work from the researchers and an enormous amount of computing resources—supplied through a large network of computers at the University of Oslo.

Clearly it was an enormous effort of which these people are justifiably proud. This is a science journal after all. The hyperbole is probably appropriate there.

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

Nice post. This additional information will likely show in textbooks in the near future. However, what they have done is far from a novelty, and much work in genetic analysis remains. Essentially, almost every branching of the eukaryotes remains to be elucidated, and the four primary eukaryote lines [which were formerly listed as five] need to be identified as to how they branched from the original single line. This task will take many more decades of research, though this is a good start.