Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Genetics and Genomics
Life’S Late Digital Revolution And Why It Matters For The Study Of The Origins Of Life, David A. Baum, Niles Lehman
Life’S Late Digital Revolution And Why It Matters For The Study Of The Origins Of Life, David A. Baum, Niles Lehman
Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations
The information contained in life exists in two forms, analog and digital. Analog information is manifest mainly in the differing concentrations of chemicals that get passed from generation to generation and can vary from cell to cell. Digital information is encoded in linear polymers such as DNA and RNA, whose side chains come in discrete chemical forms. Here, we argue that the analog form of information preceded the digital. Acceptance of this dichotomy, and this progression, can help direct future studies on how life originated and initially complexified on the primordial Earth, as well as expected trajectories for other, independent …
Topological And Thermodynamic Factors That Influence The Evolution Of Small Networks Of Catalytic Rna Species, Jessica Anne Mellor Yeates, Philippe Nghe, Niles Lehman
Topological And Thermodynamic Factors That Influence The Evolution Of Small Networks Of Catalytic Rna Species, Jessica Anne Mellor Yeates, Philippe Nghe, Niles Lehman
Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations
An RNA-directed recombination reaction can result in a network of interacting RNA species. It is now becoming increasingly apparent that such networks could have been an important feature of the RNA world during the nascent evolution of life on the Earth. However, the means by which such small RNA networks assimilate other available genotypes in the environment to grow and evolve into the more complex networks that are thought to have existed in the prebiotic milieu are not known. Here, we used the ability of fragments of the Azoarcus group I intron ribozyme to covalently self-assemble via genotype-selfish and genotype-cooperative …