Editing Domain (biology) (section)

== Development of the domain system ==
[[Carl Linnaeus]] made the classification "domain" popular in the famous [[taxonomy]] system he created in the middle of the eighteenth century. This system was further improved by the studies of [[Charles Darwin]] later on but could not classify [[bacteria]] easily, as they have very few observable features to compare to the other domains.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Domains of Life, Genomics {{!}} Learn Science at Scitable |url=https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-two-empires-and-three-domains-of-14432998/ |access-date=2022-12-01 |website=www.nature.com |language=en}}</ref> 

Carl Woese made a revolutionary breakthrough when, in 1977, he compared the [[nucleotide]] sequences of the [[16S ribosomal RNA|16s ribosomal RNA]] and discovered that the [[Rank (taxonomy)|rank]] "domain" contained three branches, not two as scientists had previously thought. Initially, due to their physical similarities, [[Archaea]] and [[Bacteria]] were classified together and called "archaebacteria". However, scientists now know that these two domains are hardly similar and are internally distinctly different.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Taxonomy I {{!}} Biology |url=https://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/Biology/2/Taxonomy-I/70 |access-date=2022-12-01 |website=Visionlearning |language=en}}</ref>