An international team led by Professor Itai YanaAi of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Department of Biology made the discovery after using an extraordinarily powerful technique known as CEL-Seq. CEL-Seq monitors individual cells for their gene activity (as detected via mRNA)-and they applied it across 10 different species, with CEL-Seq being applied to 70 embryos per species.
In particular, they were interested in whether the animal classification of phylum-which separates animals into groups according to their body plans-is actually a useful tool for placing animals into groups, as well as what genetic attributes are the same and different between the different phyla.
7:41 Explores classification in biology as well as taxonomy hierarchy: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species with The Amoeba Sisters! This video also discusses the importance of scientific names and why classification can have major changes due to DNA and cell structure evidence.