Planctomycetes challenge our concept of the bacterial cell and of a prokaryote as a cell structure type, as well as our ideas about origins of the eukaryote nucleus. Planctomycetes Are Important ...

The International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes recently pulled the rank of phylum into its code of official ... Last month, many microbiologists were surprised to find that the familiar ...

Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles within the cell, and include all bacteria, while eukaryotes are organisms whose cells have a true ...

Bacteria are amongst the simplest of organisms ... Genetic material DNA in a nucleus, plasmids are found in a few simple eukaryotic organisms. DNA is a single molecule, found free in the cytoplasm ...

Life on Earth had to begin somewhere, and scientists think that “somewhere” is LUCA—or the Last Universal Common Ancestor.

“This is the most exciting and important paper on big questions about eukaryotic origins and the tree of life in years,” said evolutionary ... Since the late 1980s, all life forms have been split into ...