MadSci Network: Science History |
In the late 1970s, researchers discovered that some types of bacteria were fundamentally different from others. These bacteria had very different structure of their ribosomes and cell walls. This initial work was done by Dr. Carl Woese and his colleagues at the University of Illinois. At first they called the new group the archaebacteria and divided all of living things into three domains (in contrast with the two-domain, five kingdom system then in use for teaching purposes), the Domain Archaebacteria, Domain Eubacteria, and Domain Eukaryota. Then, deciding that the term 'archaea' would best express the divergence between the newly discovered different bacteria and the other types, Woese changed his three domains to Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota (Eukarya). Here is a good URL to begin your study: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/archaea/archaea.html
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