treeoflife
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Scientists redesign the tree of life to add a thousand species
Scientists have been having a hard time figuring out where newly discovered organisms, such as giant viruses, fit in the tree of life. That's especially true for a particular group of researchers who unearthed 1,011 new species within the course of 15 years. In order to accommodate the new organisms they found -- and since life on Earth turned out to be more diverse than what previous generations of scientists thought -- they've decided that it's time to reinvent the evolutionary tree. Besides the 1,011 organisms they discovered, the team also studied the DNA of 2,072 known species to be able to get an accurate representation of nature's diversity.
Researchers draft the first comprehensive tree of life
It's very poetic to talk about a tree of life, where every species can trace its roots, but actually illustrating this tree is no mean feat when Earth has been home to at least 2.3 million known species. However, scientists have finally given it a shot. They've published the first draft of a comprehensive tree of life that shows every major evolutionary branch, ranging from the very first organisms to complex beings like humans. This isn't a complete tree, of course (it's doubtful that we'll ever know all the species that ever existed), but it beats the patchwork from before.
