Evolutionary Tree of Life for Mammals Greatly Improved

[Tank]

Evolutionary Tree of Life for Mammals Greatly Improved

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2011) — An international research team led by biologists at the University of California, Riverside and Texas A&M University has released for the first time a large and robust DNA matrix that has representation for all mammalian families. The matrix -- the culmination of about five years of painstaking research -- has representatives for 99 percent of mammalian families, and covers not only the earliest history of mammalian diversification but also all the deepest divergences among living mammals...

So far the Mammal matrix cross refers 164 species which creates a framework upon which to add over 5,000 more species as genetic information becomes available. By calibrating the timelines and relationships with known fossils the process will produce a detailed and robust map of our (mammal) ancestry.

In due course it should be possible to estimate when particular morphological changes took place, such as flight in bats, and then go look for the fossils in appropriatly dated sedimentary rocks, thus actively filling in morphological gaps with specifically pre-identified (by characteristics) 'transitional' (or more accurately pre-adapted) species.

[Tank]

Improving evolutionary Tree of Life: Study provides robust molecular phylogeny for mammalian families

Another report on the research.

[OldGit]

Oh boy, the creationists are going to love this! 

[The Magic Pudding]

I already improved our evolutionary tree.
Halloween's coming up, I wonder who'd look good on a spike?
OldGit looks like a potential victim, you're not the guy with the berry bush Brian's followers attacked are you?

[OldGit]

Now you come to mention it, Pudding, I never saw a more likely head for a spike than yours.

[The Magic Pudding]

Now you come to mention it, Pudding, I never saw a more likely head for a spike than yours.

Hey,,, you get your own Halloween theme, else I'll send my assistant over!