During his work at the University of Illinois, Woese along with some of his colleagues discovered a single-celled microbe called archaea. After finding this microbe he started studying the origin of it. In this article, it is mentioned that there are three evolutionary groups all of which are derived from the same ancestor. The fact that all three groups came from the same ancestor was first proved by Woese. Archaea happens to be the third group. Woese also discovered that not only do archaea live in extreme environments such as volcanic vents, but they also were found inside many organisms such as humans and plankton. He also said that there are "far more of the living protoplasm on earth than all humans, animals and plants combined" (Woese). He mentions this to show how little we pay attention to something that is far more prominent on Earth just because of its size in comparison to the size of the plants and animals that we know much more about.
This connects to our unit on evolution and how all animals share a common ancestor. Woese discovers different groups of species and is able to prove that although they have almost nothing in common, they all evolved from one species. This is difficult enough for some of us to understand how humans and baboons might be related which is something we went over in class, therefore it is nearly impossible for some of us to imagine how archaea and humans might be related as Woese says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/science/carl-woese-dies-discovered-lifes-third-domain.html?ref=evolution&_r=0
How did Woese discover the archaea and in what natural environments can it be found?
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