> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html
> Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life
It's rather oversensationalized. Prokaryotes swap DNA rather readily,
though the RNA-DNA antithesis as written is rather inaccurate. The
RNA in organisms is coded by DNA. If you go through trying to assess
gene exchanges in prokaryote genomes, you can get a reasonable
estimate. You can make reasonabel trees of eukaryotes, but there will
be plenty of blurry spots. For the eukaryotes, there is a pretty good
tree. Actually, I think the vast majority of species are insects, not
unicellular, though the majority of individuals are unicellular.
In the eukaryotes, the transfers are generally much more discrete and
easy to pick out. Hybridization between close relatives, which is the
vast majority of hybrids in eukaryotes, does not significantly disrupt
the overall tree of eukaryotes.
-- Dr. David Campbell 425 Scientific Collections University of Alabama "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams" To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.Received on Mon Feb 2 19:36:13 2009
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