Tracey A. Lincoln and Gerald F. Joyce from the Scripps Research Institute have created a molecule that can replicate indefinitely without any other enzymes or proteins. They observed this molecule doubling in numbers every hour, mutating, and evolving in the lab.
The molecule is an RNA enzyme modified to cross-replicate (i.e. copy each other). While this may not be how life started on Earth, this research provides valuable insight into molecular evolution prior to the first cell. Steve Novella discussed the implications of this finding on his blog, NeuroLogica.
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