By tweaking chemical strands of RNA, researchers have taken another step towards understanding how life may have first evolved on our planet.
A test tube based system of chemicals that exhibit life-like qualities such as indefinite self-replication, mutation, and survival of the fittest, has been created by US scientists.... "This is the very end of the line, where chemistry starts turning into biology" [Chemistry World]
, says researcher Gerald Joyce. Researchers have previously created RNA strands that replicated themselves for a while before grinding to a halt, but this experiment marks the first creation of RNA strands that continue to replicate themselves indefinitely, which set up the conditions that allowed for evolution.
In the modern world, DNA carries the genetic sequence for advanced organisms, while RNA is dependent on DNA for performing its roles such as building proteins. But one prominent theory about the origins of life, called the RNA ...
