‘Monumental’ experiment suggests how life on Earth may have started

In a series of test tubes, scientists developed an RNA molecule that was able to make accurate copies, a small but important step in showing how life on Earth could have started with RNA. A much-debated theory holds that 4 billion years ago, give or take, long before the appearance of dinosaurs or even bacteria, the primordial soup contained only the possibility of life. Then a molecule called RNA took a dramatic step into the future: It made a copy of itself.

An RNA molecule must make copies very close to the original to achieve the same delicate balance that governs Darwinian evolution in nature. If the copies change too much, the RNA’s abilities degenerate, and things go downhill quickly. Imagine a malfunctioning photocopier that makes a fuzzy or faded copy of an image. When placed in the machine, the fuzzy copy produces a new one that is even worse.“If the error rate is too high, you can’t maintain the information,” Joyce said. “It just blows up.

To show that their RNA was getting better at copying, the Salk team tested a 71st-generation version against one of its distant ancestors. The newer generation outperformed its ancestor when it came to making accurate copies.“In general, I think it’s a great step forward” for the RNA World theory, said Claudia Bonfio, a junior group leader at the University of Strasbourg in France, who did not participate in the study.

In this alternative scenario, Bonfio said, the various building blocks inhabit compartments in a kind of primitive version of a cell. Should the scientists succeed in generating an RNA that can copy itself, evolution could then proceed largely on its own.

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