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One wonders what the next Tree of Life will look like …

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Here’s another effort (2008) to draw the tree of life. It doesn’t look much like a tree, more like a feather. But then neither did this 2010 one from BioMed Central. Explaining their rootless tree of life, the editors said,

Our protocellular lipid bilayer surrounding a circular representation of a rootless phylogenetic tree omits explicit reference to molecular and cellular structure and much else; and purists will find fault with the phylogeny. We must ask you all to settle for the Gestalt.

We can tell that a field is in ferment when its visuals alter dramatically.

Comments
@News:
It doesn’t look much like a tree (...) But then neither did this 2010
I've examined the pictures and found no place where it doesn't look like a tree. Do you have a specific example where the tree is broken? And a follow-up question: What do you think a tree is?JWTruthInLove
October 3, 2012
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I wonder if that lipid bilayer lets just any old thing in and out of this "cell." Or perhaps that lipid bilayer is itself omitted from being an "explicit reference to molecular and cellular structure." How does that work? Help?Mung
October 2, 2012
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John W Kelly
October 1, 2012
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