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The genomic studies described in the article clearly show the phylogenetic relationship of Asgard archaea to other archaea and thus better resolve their place o
by Kaijo 3y ago
The genomic studies described in the article clearly show the phylogenetic relationship of Asgard archaea to other archaea and thus better resolve their place on Earth's singular tree of life. The excitement is over their potential to resolve the deep branching structure of that tree. They plausibly share a most recent common ancestor with all eukaryotes and in some sense represent an evolutionary grade of transition towards eukaryotes. It's also exciting that some strains have been maintained in pure culture for the first time, so that we can rule out the findings as being merely artefacts of metagenomic sequencing methods.
How did you to get aliens from this?