![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/26b5061e-ac1b-11f0-b31b-83e0dfbeb9e5_1761379255296.jpeg\" "\\"Charles")
Charles Darwin\u2019s initial sketch, accompanied by the note: \u201cI think.\u201d (Wikimedia) <\/p>\nFrom that microscopic revolution came multicellular life; the strange Cambrian creatures that once ruled the seas; the fish that crept onto land; early reptiles; furry mammals that scurried beneath dinosaurs; apes, elephants, whales, giraffes, humans.<\/p>\n
We may never have a complete map of exactly what goes where, on the grand, sprawling expanse that is this \u201ctree of life\u201d.<\/p>\n
There have been times when we weren\u2019t even sure it was a single tree. But data shows it is. And now, we\u2019re parsing information in milliseconds, building branches armed with more information on a single species than entire libraries contained just two centuries ago.<\/p>\n
Max Telford represents the most exciting phases in this journey, in his debut book, The Tree of Life: Solving Science\u2019s Greatest Puzzle.<\/p>\n
The British evolutionary biologist teaches zoology and comparative anatomy at University College London, and has spent three decades studying the tangled bonds that link living things. In his book, he zooms out: what exactly have we learnt about how all living beings \u2014 bacteria, plants, worms, mushrooms, humans; past and present \u2014 are connected?<\/p>\n
This puzzle has occupied scientists since Charles Darwin first sketched a spindly tree in his notebook in 1837, alongside the note: \u201cI think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charles Darwin\u2019s initial sketch, accompanied by the note: \u201cI think.\u201d (Wikimedia) <\/p>\n
LEAF OF FAITH<\/p>\n
Darwin\u2019s doodle has been replaced by vast computer-generated diagrams.<\/p>\n
The latest is a swirling shape reminiscent of a fern.<\/p>\n
On this expansive tree of life, all forms fall into three groups: bacteria, archaea (single-cell organisms that lack a nucleus, but are genetically and chemically different from bacteria), and eukaryotes (animals, plants, fungi and everything else with complex cell structures).<\/p>\n
By number, the tree is overwhelmingly microbial. Bacteria account for the bulk of species. Animals, by comparison, make up only the thinnest sprays of leaves at the tips of a few branches. Humans are one twig on one branch of one minor bough, within the category eukaryotes.<\/p>\n
All this constitutes a fraction of 1% of the estimated 1 trillion species alive today.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, it has taken nearly 200 years, and considerable trial and error, to make it even this far.<\/p>\n
Before gene mapping, as Telford documents, scientists attempted to build the tree by comparing morphology: legs, wings, shells, flowers, bone structures.<\/p>\n
With molecular biology, researchers could finally compare organisms\u2019 genetic make-up, mapping proteins, RNA, DNA, and eventually genomes (all the genes that make up a specific species). This has been very recent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started my PhD in 1989, we were just beginning to use genes to work out how animals are related,\u201d Telford says. \u201cMy doctoral thesis focused on a molecular analysis of the arrow worm, using just one gene, where now we might use a thousand. Very soon, we will be using entire genomes in such studies.\u201d<\/p>\n
PROBABLE CAUSE<\/p>\n
Even with all the additional data available, and the artificial intelligence to help analyse it, the puzzle remains mind-boggling.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you take just three species \u2014 a human, a chimpanzee, and a gorilla \u2014 there are three possible ways they could be related,\u201d Telford says, trying to explain the scale of the problem. \u201cAdd an orangutan and there are suddenly 15. Add one more species and there are 105. For the 28 known species of apes, the number of possible trees is something like 1, with 35 zeros after it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This hasn\u2019t stopped biologists from trying. And already, as branches take shape, surprises are tumbling from them.<\/p>\n
It turns out, for instance, that the grey wolf native to Eurasia and North America is more closely related to the whale than to the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger \u2014 a reminder that nature has yielded the same form, from different raw materials, over and over (in what is called convergent evolution).<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, swifts, so similar to swallows that even the father of modern taxonomy Carl Linnaeus grouped them together, are actually closer in genetic makeup to hummingbirds, while swallows are distant cousins of the owl. Once again, the same form emerges from species that are nothing alike, in different parts of the world.<\/p>\n
THE WORKINGS OF THE WEB<\/p>\n
What else could a tree of life teach us?<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s already proving that moving forward isn\u2019t always the best option.<\/p>\n
We know evolution isn\u2019t about advancement, but about survival. So, if shedding a few characteristics and simplifying form helps, that\u2019s what happens.<\/p>\n
Just how far \u201cbackwards\u201d can such a creep go?<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my work has been showing that things placed at the bottom of the tree \u2014 because they look simple \u2014 were actually once complex animals that threw away a lot of their complexity,\u201d Telford says.<\/p>\n
This has happened, over and over, to such a dramatic degree that the mint-sauce worm, for instance, long believed to be a primitive leftover from the dawn of life, is now thought to be descended from far more complex ancestors, with possible genetic links to the starfish, and perhaps even to certain vertebrates.<\/p>\n
Why would it have taken so many steps backwards? The answer to that could tell us a lot about how life could change, as the planet does.<\/p>\n
There is hope that the tree can also answer questions about the origins of evolutionary oddities, such as the human chin. Why do we have it? \u201cNo one really knows,\u201d Telford says. \u201cThere are theories that it might help with speech, or might have helped us withstand attacks better. Perhaps it was an accident,\u201d he adds, laughing. \u201cCompare a human face and a chimp face, and their jaw and lower face stick out much more than ours. Maybe as our face shrank, the chin didn\u2019t get the message.\u201d<\/p>\n
DEAD ENDS<\/p>\n
The really big challenge is filling in the earliest years.<\/p>\n
Most early forms consisted of soft-bodied organisms that left no fossils, erasing entire branches from our view. Yet, while the past remains murky, the tree could help us figure out what we may become next.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe humans will split into two species,\u201d Telford says. Maybe we will simply shape-shift again. \u201cOr maybe we won\u2019t be around\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
What is certain, he notes, is that one day, the entire tree will be erased.<\/p>\n
If this sounds overwhelming, that\u2019s partly the point. We should be fascinated by this \u201cmost extraordinary adventure of life\u201d, but also a little humbled, Telford says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re obviously very important to ourselves,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut the truth is that we are one, single, very new piece in this enormous puzzle. That really gives one perspective on humanity\u2019s place in the world. We might not be very important after all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From that microscopic revolution came multicellular life; the strange Cambrian creatures that once ruled the seas; the fish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[353,49,48,45570,10400,5844,31517,66,112606],"class_list":{"0":"post-238836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-htwknd","12":"tag-life","13":"tag-literature","14":"tag-non-fiction","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-tree-of-life"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}