How has the field of molecular biology influenced the field of exobiology?
The thing that has probably changed the outlook the most is the discovery of ribozymes, the catalytic RNA. This means you can have an organism with RNA carrying out both the genetic functions and catalytic functions. That gets around the problem of protein synthesis, which is this incredibly complicated thing. There is a problem with RNA as a prebiotic molecule because the ribose is unstable. This leads us to the pre-RNA world. The idea of the pre-RNA world is essentially the same as the RNA world, except you have a different molecule that replicates. Another thing worth remembering is that all these pre-biotic experiments produce amino acids. To have these amino acids around and not use them in the first living organism would be odd. So the role of amino acids in the origin of life is unknown but still likely. Tell us about your recent work and the lagoon idea. The primitive Earth had big oceans, but it also had lakes, lagoons and beaches. Our hypothesis is that the conditions may hav
