A SYNTHETIC molecule that performs an essential function of life – self-replication – could shed light on the origin of all living things. The lab-born strand of ribonucleic acid (RNA) can evolve in a test tube to double itself ever more swiftly.
This is the first time that an experiment has produced an RNA that can sustain its own replication.
Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and colleague Tracey Lincoln studied RNA because most researchers think early life stored information in this sister molecule to DNA. One of the reasons for this is that,…
