How Much Can the Origin of Life Be Simplified?
09/15/2005 No problem, a report from Spain s Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona seems to say: Life s origins were easier than was thought. (See also EurekAlert.) The problem they claim to have solved is described in their press release: In the primordial soup that produced life on earth, there were organic molecules that combined to produce the first nucleic acid chains, which were the first elements able to self-replicate. According to one of the more accepted theories, these molecules were ribonucleic acid (RNA) chains, a molecule that is practically identical to DNA and that today has the secondary role in cells of copying information stored in DNA and translating it into proteins. These proteins have a direct active role in the chemical reactions of the cell. In the early stages of life, it seems that the first RNA chains would have had the dual role of self-replicating (as is today the case with DNA) and participating actively in the chemical reactions of the cell activity. Because
