Chemists Recreate How RNA Might Have Reproduced for First Time

Template-directed synthesis of a genetic polymer in a model protocell

The phospholipids that form the membranes of modern cells present a formidable barrier to polar and charged molecules, necessitating complex channels and pumps to permit the exchange of molecules with the external environment. This presents a problem when trying to imagine what a primitive cell would have looked like earlier in the evolution of life. With no transport machinery, how could simple cells take in complex nutrients? A possible answer…

Chemists recreate how RNA might have reproduced for first time

Chemists have demonstrated how RNA (ribonucleic acid) might have replicated itself on early Earth -- a key process in the origin of life.

Scientists Are Pretty Close to Replicating the First Thing That Ever Lived

At some point, RNA must have replicated itself before the evolutionary arrival of DNA and proteins, and now we might know how.

We’re getting close to recreating the first step in evolution of life

Life is thought to have begun when RNA began replicating itself, and researchers have got close to achieving this in the lab

Researchers have shown that cellular structures can form and reproduce themselves without biologic molecules - through a light reaction in which artificial hollow bodies grow, divide and release spores that form new units. (Continue reading)

Lipid-assisted Synthesis of RNA-like Polymers from Mononucleotides

A fundamental problem in research on the origin of life is the process by which polymers capable of catalysis and replication were produced on the early Ea