Tree of life mostly complete mystery

gpuccio @9 I think I understand the terminology a little better now. Thank you for the explanation. Dionisio

gpuccio: I suppose that everything that happened between a completely non-life situation (whatever that may mean) and FUCA could be considered as OOL process. Not necessarily. The world may have been (and most probably was) teaming with life during the time of the Universal Common Ancestors. Zachriel

Dionisio: I suppose they usually start with LUCA too, as the first node. If FUCA and LUCA existed as different entities, then FUCA existed before LUCA, and different intermediate states may have existed too. I suppose that everything that happened between a completely non-life situation (whatever that may mean) and FUCA could be considered as OOL process. gpuccio

gpuccio @2

[...] the central linear stem is supposed to represent LUCA. In that sense, the image is very realistic because we have no credible ideas of what could have existed before LUCA, and therefore it’s perfectly correct to consider it simply as a given.

Thank you for the clarification of the diagram. More dumb questions: In the original (classic) tree with root in textbooks, which part of the tree would have corresponded to FUCA and LUCA? the root? the bottom part of the stem? FUCA is closer to OOL event? Dionisio

Anyone who knows what a tree is — that is, a graph in which any two nodes are connected by exactly one path. Exactly one path. Almost like evolution is guided. Mung

There is no tree. Its just a option to look at biology by comparing traits and see a tree. its an option to see biology as just having like traits without being evidence of common descent. In short a creator really could give basic kinds EYEBALLS and not be demanding of a common descent of a eyeball original single kind. The evos are putting the creator into a corner. Its like he had to give every kind a different kind of eyesight ability to prove separate creation of kinds. He only had a few days and seemed to be a good idea. Robert Byers

That representation of the tree is unrooted.

And who would ever have thought of calling it a tree anyway, but for past beliefs?

Anyone who knows what a tree is -- that is, a graph in which any two nodes are connected by exactly one path. wd400

Too bad they don't show it to scale. Mung

News,

And who would ever have thought of calling it a tree anyway, but for past beliefs?

I'm not a scientist, but certainly I would. All these representations, including the leaf, the Kumbaya circle, Darwin's famous notebook sketch, the text file containing the data in Newick format, etc., depict trees (in the sense of abstract data structures). No one is claiming that all of these representations or visualizations of abstract trees closely resemble (plant) trees. daveS

Dionisio: I suppose that the central linear stem is supposed to represent LUCA. In that sense, the image is very realistic because we have no credible ideas of what could have existed before LUCA, and therefore it's perfectly correct to consider it simply as a given. gpuccio

News, Thank you for posting this. Very interesting. However, I don't quite understand where in that nice looking "tree" is the root? Is it labeled (marked) with some special symbol I should look for in the picture? Perhaps it's quite obvious, but I don't see it. My vast ignorance betrays me again. :) On a side note, did you see this?

Parachute Researchers and Openness and Biopiracy http://icis.ucdavis.edu/?p=912 Recent Posts from the ICIS Blog Parachute Researchers and Openness and Biopiracy April 2, 2016 Frontiers in Publishing: Experiences with Open Access Journals March 23, 2016 Video of Chris Kelty on “Open Access, Piracy, and Scholarly Publication” March 21, 2016 http://icis.ucdavis.edu/?p=899 Storify of Chris Kelty talk for #ProvostForum on Open Access, Piracy, and the Scholarly Publishing Market March 17, 2016

Why do they have to deal with those kinds of issues? Are they really that serious? Dionisio