RIP Carl Woese, Legend, Pioneer

The world has lost a great evolutionary microbiologist; a pioneer who truly brought us greater understanding and showed us the humbled depths upon which we actually rely to survive. We are a few mere fragile mortals compared to the microbes he studied...that which truly rules the earth.

quote from this 1996 interview by the NY Times , image from I ****ing love science Facebook page

Carl Woese Dies at 84; Discovered Life’s ‘Third Domain’
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: December 31, 2012

In 1977, Dr. Woese and colleagues at the university startled the scientific world by announcing the discovery of what would be called archaea, a category of single-cell microbes genetically distinct from the two groups previously believed to comprise living organisms: prokaryotes, which include bacteria, and eukaryotes, which include plants and animals.

“He put on the table a metric for determining evolutionary relatedness,” said Norman R. Pace, a microbiologist and biochemist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “His results were the first to prove that all life on earth was related.”

Microbial Life's Steadfast Champion
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Published: October 15, 1996

A scientist who prefers to work alone, Dr. Woese, 68, single-handedly discovered a third branch of life called Archaea, a microbial form that is turning up in great quantities around the globe. He rewrote the tree of life, paring it from five kingdoms to three domains, with the human species sitting at the tip of one. And he pioneered the application of Darwinian thought to microbiology -- a marriage of disciplines that is revolutionizing the way scientists view the world and how humans fit in.