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There are a lot of microbes that are unculturable to this day and to my knowledge, no one has really done a proper investigation to see if the universal metabol

There are a lot of microbes that are unculturable to this day and to my knowledge, no one has really done a proper investigation to see if the universal metabolic molecules like, for example, the hydrogen carriers NAD+/NADP+/NADPH, are truly universal. If we're going to see evidence of multiple trees of life, it'd be in those little details because most of the food chain has to interact with each other. Or fungi and other decomposers can bridge the gap. I think over the span of billions of years, evolution tends to converge too much for the trees to remain very distinct from each other.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
> There are a lot of microbes that are unculturable to this day Some of this has been solved by literally allowing the microbes to sit in culture for a year or so in order to either wake up from hibernation, or adapt to the culture composition. > see if the universal metabolic molecules like, for example, the hydrogen carriers NAD+/NADP+/NADPH, are truly universal. For anything that's based on DNA or RNA we now do direct sequencing of environmental samples. From this direct sequencing we can pull out individual genes and pathways. > I think over the span of billions of years, evolution tends to converge too much for the trees to remain very distinct from each other. We've got over 20 recognized genetic codes already from existing life. These are highly similar, but this probably points to similar origins instead of convergence.