How do scientists study and classify life-forms? How can we understand the complex evolutionary connections between living organisms? Woese's breakthrough was momentous for at least three reasons.

The Darwin Tree of Life project has an ambitious target of sequencing the DNA barcodes and full genomes of all 66,000+ described UK species. Our work is the UK’s contribution to the Earth Biogenome ...

The "grotesque" baobab tree has long been known as the "tree of life" for its ability to create and maintain its own ecosystem in arid regions. Since the time of the ancient Egyptians, people have ...

The largest-ever study of bird genomes has produced a remarkably clear picture of the bird family tree. Published in the journal Nature today, our study shows that most of the modern groups of ...