Re: I usually like Elizabeth Pennisi, but

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t wrote:

Re: "Genome sequences have just jumped down to a lower branch
on the tree of life" (sea anemone)

No, there are no higher or lower branches on the tree of live,
except for our ancient ancestors who are closer to the trunk than
we are. Every current-day leaf/branch of the tree is just as "high"
on the tree as any other. [...]

"Never say higher or lower" ;-)

IMO, there are plenty of ways of defining relative height metrics
on the tree of life based on the genome sequence.

E.g. A > B if sizeof(diff(A,LCA(A,B))) > sizeof(diff(B,LCA(A,B)))

That's based on a crude measure of how much the genomes of the
organisms being compared resembles that of their LCA.

It wouldn't surprise me if many of the more reasonable ones put
sea anemones relatively low down.
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