Evolution on fast-forward
Article Abstract:
New research elucidates how the binding features of ribozymes or catalytic RNA may have produced self-replicating chemical systems, a process of chemical evolution that culminated in the origin of life. A.M. Pyle and colleagues employed site-directed mutagenesis to investigate the strategy that the ribozyme uses to sped up the hydroxyl group of a bound guanosine molecule on an oligonucleotide. Researchers Tao Pan and Olke C. Uhlenbeck devised an in vitro selection system to find the RNA molecule the utilizes Pb2+ and Mg2+ ions to initiate cleavage of the RNA.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1992
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Life in a test tube
Article Abstract:
Many small molecules are capable of carrying out DNA's function as a chemical replicator, suggesting that the DNA- and protein-based life found on Earth may not be the only form of life possible. Scientists have long speculated on whether life with a different chemical basis might have evolved elsewhere in the Universe. Now Julius Rebek and colleagues, using a test-tube replicator with an imide ester and an adenine-containing amine as components, have shown that life not based on DNA may very well exist.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1992
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The habitat and nature of early life
Article Abstract:
Research is presented describing the development of early life forms situated near hydrothermal outlets enabling the process of oxygenic photosysnthesis to develop.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 2001
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