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origins of life
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Is a Bigger Genetic Code Better? Get Ready to Find Out
Evolution settled on a genetic code that uses four letters to name 20 amino acids. Synthetic biologists adding new bases to DNA will be free to improve on nature — if they can.
The End of the RNA World Is Near, Biochemists Argue
For decades, an origin-of-life story starring RNA has prevailed. New research may be shaking that theory’s hold on our understanding of life’s beginnings.
Life’s First Molecule Was Protein, Not RNA, New Model Suggests
Which mattered first at the dawn of life: proteins or nucleic acids? Proteins may have had the edge if a theorized process let them grow long enough to become self-replicating catalysts.
First Support for a Physics Theory of Life
Take chemistry, add energy, get life. The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing.
How Life (and Death) Spring From Disorder
Life was long thought to obey its own set of rules. But as simple systems show signs of lifelike behavior, scientists are arguing about whether this apparent complexity is all a consequence of thermodynamics.
Droplets That ‘Come to Life’
Life might have originated in droplets that behave surprisingly like living cells.
Dividing Droplets Could Explain Life’s Origin
Researchers have discovered that simple “chemically active” droplets grow to the size of cells and spontaneously divide, suggesting they might have evolved into the first living cells.
Solution: ‘Time Through an LCD Display’
Insights about time’s arrow from a liquid crystal universe.
Seeing Time Through a Liquid Crystal Display
What insights can an LCD display give us about time’s arrow?