by Roberto — From the fundamental concepts of biology, the fact that all organisms now alive share a common ancestor (LUCA) ranks as one of my favorites. When I pause to consider that, despite four billion years of evolution and divergence, my ribosomal RNA shares some stretches of sequence identity with all other autonomous organisms, I still get goose bumps...
by Christoph — Which picture comes to your mind if you think of the 'Tree of Life' (ToL) ? Maybe it's Ernst Haeckel's venerable oak tree ? Or is it rather Carl Woese's famous "three domains" phylogenetic tree ? Although highly abstract, the latter still resembles a tree with stem and branches, at least as much as does the famous "I think" sketch by Charles Darwin, on page 36 in his Notebook B.
Forty Years and Entirely New Views of the Microbial World
by Roberto and Elio — Exactly forty years ago to the day (as we sit down to write this post on November 3, 2017) the front page of the New York Times displayed a large photograph of Carl Woese followed by a full length article describing his discovery that "living systems represent one of three aboriginal lines of descent." The press coverage in this and...
Pictures Considered #42 by Christoph — It's exactly 150 years since the picture considered in this post was published in the 'General Morphology of Organisms' by Ernst Haeckel (1866). "Phylogeny is the evolutionary history of organisms," explains Uwe Hoßfeld, co-author of a recent paper in 'Nature' that celebrates this anniversary. "Because Haeckel was the first actually to define this term, in..."
by Elio — The Tree of Life vies with the Origin of Life for a position of highest significance among biological concerns. Those who write about it (bioarborists?) have much to say about its anatomy. Does it consist of simple branches, as per Darwin's sketch, or is it anastomosed into a bramble of connected branches? This matters.
by Vincent Racaniello — Are viruses living entities? I don't believe so, but it's an engaging question for debate. On a recent episode of 'This Week in Virology' we concluded that it's somewhat of a futile argument because everyone has their own view; perhaps our time is better spent studying viruses than...
