It is not a new branch on the tree of life. It was already there, but “scientists” didn’t know about it.
Their “tree of life” was wrong. Fix it, Mindy Weisberger, and don’t write stupid misleading headlines.
“They observed the activity of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules, as they ferried information between hundreds of genes.”
I’ve noticed so many science writers don’t understand what they write about.
It’s really bad.