Marianna Shannon (12) - Hug et al. and the Tree of Life

    In my microbiology class we read Hug et al., a paper that presented a completely new view of the tree of life. Using genomic data from over a thousand previously unknown organisms, the researchers dramatically expanded our understanding of life's diversity, revealing that the majority of life on earth belongs to bacteria we have never even seen or cultured. What struck me most was how confidently we thought we understood life before this. The tree of life is one of the most fundamental concepts in biology, and yet it was missing most of the picture. This reminded me of something we explore constantly in our class, the idea that our understanding of the world is always incomplete, always evolving. Myths and stories existed to explain what people did not understand, and as understanding grew, the stories changed. Science works the same way. What we think we know is always just the best version of the story we have right now. Hug et al. humbled me in the same way mythology does, by reminding me that the unknown is always larger than the known.

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