What is man’s originwhere do we come from? It is an existential question, a “procurement fire” that mobilizes philosophers, theologians and scientists for millennia. While the “old guard” of intellectuals used stories or transfers to explain the origin of life, scientists instead learn about the internal functioning of the smaller structural elements of life in an effort to understand how they first formed life for billions of years ago.

This long scientific exploration has led most evolutionary biologists to conclude that, for at least 400 million years, Earth was a “world of RNA”. The hypothesis suggests that life was formed for the first time because of the self -reproduced RNA, before the evolutionary arrival of DNA or even proteins.

But there are some problems reports Popular Mechanics.

First, there is no trace of this “first copyman” in the well -known biology. And secondly, scientists have not been convincingly copying RNA in an environment similar to early Earth. While scientists are still looking for evidence to validate the first of these two issues, a team from the University College of London (UCL) is approaching the solving of the second problem.

The publication in the journal Nature Chemistry reports that a team of UCL scientists (along with experts from the MRC Molegian Biology Laboratory in Cambridge) used triplets of RNA that underwent acid and heat in water. This separated the double helix of RNA – the structure that makes copy so difficult – and scientists froze the solution.

What happened below is probably a familiar look at how life was formed on Earth for the first time – among the wet gaps of ice crystals, these structural elements laid the RNA chains and prevented them from reconnecting. After scientists thawed the solution and made adjustments to pH and temperature, the RNA was copied again and again. In the end, the chain was so great that these structures could perform biological functions.

‘The triplets of the RNA we used, the so -called trinutstelotids, They do not exist in biology today, but they allow much easier copying. First forms of life are likely to be quite different from any form of life we ​​know »said in a press release, James Atwwater, lead author of the study by UCL. “The changing conditions we created can happen naturally, for example with nightclubs and daily temperature cycles or in geothermal environments where warm rocks come across a cold atmosphere,” he explained.

The UCL has long been involved in reconstructing the process of origin of life on Earth. In 2017, for example, a study analyzed the chemistry that provided the Earth itself the nucleotides themselves necessary for the construction of the first RNA structures. This new study is now trying to understand, in a laboratory environment, how these ancient RNAs have begun for the first time reproduction, a process necessary to understand the base of life.

“Life is separated from pure chemistry from information, a molecular memory coded in the genetic material transmitted from one generation to the next,” said Philip Hollyzer, head of the study by the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory. “In order for this process to happen, the information must be copied, that is, reproduced, to be transmitted.”

At present, researchers have managed to reproduce only 17% (approximately) of the RNA chain (about 30 of 180 letters), but the group says there is no reason not to achieve complete copying with improved enzyme efficiency. The researchers also note that this reaction cannot occur in salty water (salt disrupts the freezer process), but geothermal lakes or freshwater lakes would be the perfect chemical environment to start copying RNA.

Although many questions remain, the ancient world of Earth’s RNA could actually have the ability to self -define. It is an interesting step forward, but the scientific journey continues. Maybe if we find out where we come from we will know and where we are going.