What came first in the origin of life? A study contradicts the 'metabolism first' hypothesis
Monday, January 11, 2010 - 09:21
in Biology & Nature
A research published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences rejects the theory that the origin of life stems from a system of self-catalytic molecules capable of experiencing Darwinian evolution without the need of RNA or DNA and their replication. The research, which was carried out with the participation of Mauro Santos, researcher of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), has demonstrated that, through the analysis of what some researchers name 'compound genomes,' these chemical networks cannot be considered evolutionary units because they lose properties which are essential for evolution when they reach a critical size and greater level of complexity...