Posted: Mar 05, 2010 1:18 pm
Mononoke wrote:Nobody is interested in my giant alien DNA farm hypothesis
Of course we are, but you do need to open a new thread on it
Having established that RNA was synthesisable under prebiotic conditions, researchers then turned to the matter of establishing the existence of self-replicating species of RNA molecules. This was duly successful[30, 43, 45 - 47], establishing that such species could have arisen among the extant RNA molecules being synthesised on a prebiotic Earth, and of course, once one self-replicating species exists, the process of evolution can begin, which has also since been demonstrated to apply to replicating RNAs in appropriate laboratory experiments[48].
It is rather unclear what is meant by 'synthesisable'. If it means that some of the steps have been shown to be possible by laboratory experiments, then it is entirely correct. What it certainly not the case, is that it is possible to set up a reactor set to prebiotic conditions, and then have any measurable yield of RNA.
Of course the term 'self-replicating species of RNA molecules' needs a bit of explanation. This doesn't mean as it might be assumed that these RNA molecules will simply copy themselves if left in a solution of prebiotic soup. They can make copies of themselves if they are fed with high concentrations of nucleotides under the right conditions and purity.