her.

    In 1969, in an attempt to bring some order to tion, anecologist from Cornell University named R. taker unveiled in to divide life into five principal brancae, Fungi, Protista, and Monera. Protista, ion of an earlierterm, Protoctista, ury earlier by a Scottis namedJo to describe any organisms t  nor animal.

    ttaker’s ne, Protista remained ill defined.

    Some taxonomists reserved it for large unicellular organisms—tes—but otreated it as tting into it anyt didn’t fitany you consulted) slime molds, amoebas,and even sea contained as many as 200,000different species of organism all told. t’s a lot of odd socks.

    Ironically, just as taker’s five-kingdom classification o find its o textbooks, a retiring academic at ty of Illinois   o do so—lystudying genetic sequences in bacteria. In takingprocess. ork on a single bacterium could easily consume a year. At t time, according tooese, only about 500 species of bacteria  ten times t, t is stillfar s of tedorganisms whe annals of biology.

    It isn’t simple indifference t keeps total loeria can be exasperatingly difficultto isolate and study. Only about 1 percent ure. Considering able ture, it is an odd fact t t to ri dis  liet to bloom. Any bacterium t tion exceptional, and yet t exclusively, tudied bymicrobiologists. It  animals from visiting zoos.”

    Genes, o approac tal divisions in ted. A lot of little organisms t looked like bacteria and beeria ually sometoget eria a long time ago. oese called te