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Triple Helix — Designing a New Molecule of Life
Anti-Globalism sends in this quote from Scientific American about attempts to synthesize molecules that function as well or better than the natural building blocks of life:
"A molecule that some researchers study in pursuit of this vision is peptide nucleic acid (PNA), which mimics the information-storing features of DNA and RNA but is built on a proteinlike backbone that is simpler and sturdier than their sugar-phosphate backbones. ... Many studies have demonstrated PNA's suitability for modifying gene expression, mostly in molecular test-tube experiments and in cell cultures. Studies in animals have begun, as has research on ways to transform PNA into drugs that can readily enter a person's cells from the bloodstream. ... Some scientists have suggested that PNAs or a very similar molecule may have formed the basis of an early kind of life at a time before proteins, DNA and RNA had evolved. Perhaps rather than creating novel life, artificial-life researchers will be re-creating our earliest ancestors."
Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing evolution. There is no committee that considers all possible solutions and states "This is the best one". Evolution is a case of what happens happens and what doesn't die out is what's left and so considered successful.
It is entirely possible that there are much more efficient ways for life to exist or function, but are different than the way life happened to happen here on earth. Or it could be that life DID happen that way but the methodology was not optimal for the environment at the time so the DNA/RNA based forms outlived them.
Ice Cream has no bones.
An excellent point; possibly the same reason why we're stuck with bodies which break down far too quickly -- an immortal organism simply wouldn't evolve.
I can conceive of a situation where such a molecule might actually be selected against. If the molecule were "too" stable and inhibited molecular evolution, it's quite possible that early life with essentially a "broken" system like RNA, which made events like transcription errors and insertions more likely, then it's quite possible that RNA could have won out over the technically "better" molecule simply out-evolving it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They want to make a redheaded punk-haired girl, so it's a noble cause. ;)
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