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Friday, March 4, 2011

Did Viruses Invent DNA

3quarksdaily: "Cells across the tree of life are built with very similar components: A wall to keep everything in, DNA which stores the genome, and RNA and protein which take care of the mechanics and metabolism. These components are heavily interdependent, and it is an ongoing puzzle how the modern cell emerged from the prebiotic chemistry of early earth. (See Wikipedia here ). There are two major approaches to try to bridge this gap. The first is to try to synthesize biotic compounds from a soup of plausible precurors, as in Miller and Urey’s “lightning experiment.” [Miller shown performing the experiment in photo on the right.] The converse approach is to scrutinize living organisms for hints of their ancestors, specifically the Last Universal Cellular Ancestor (LUCA)."

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