Month: September 2022

RECIPROCAL CONSTRUCTION. "We have two enzymes, a plus and a minus...The plus assembles the pieces to make the minus enzyme, and the minus enzyme assembles the pieces to draw the plus. It’s kind of like biology, where there is a DNA strand with plus and minus strands." https://www.wired.com/2009/01/replicatingrna/ View in LinkedIn

INFORMATION COMPETITION. "To put it in info speak, we have a channel of 30 bit capacity for transferring information...We can configure those bits in different ways and make a variety of different replicators. And then have them compete with each other." https://www.wired.com/2009/01/replicatingrna/ View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR MUTATION. "Most of the time they breed true, but sometimes there is a bit flip — a mutation — and it’s a different replicator." https://www.wired.com/2009/01/replicatingrna/ View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR MUTANTS. "It turned out that while the scientist-designed enzymes were great at reproducing without competition, when you put them in the big soup mix, a new set of mutants emerged that were better at replicating within the system. It almost worked like an ecosystem, but with just straight chemistry." https://www.wired.com/2009/01/replicatingrna/ View in LinkedIn

ABIOTIC REPLICATION. "It shows that RNA molecules "could have carried out their replication in the total absence" of the more sophisticated biological machinery that life now possesses." https://www.wired.com/2009/01/replicatingrna/ View in LinkedIn

CRYSTAL REPLICATION. "Tiny DNA tile crystals consisting of many copies of a piece of information are first grown, then broken into a few pieces by mechanically-induced scission, or force. The new crystal bits contain all the information needed to keep copying the sequence. Each piece then begins to replicate its information and grow until broken apart again—without the help of enzymes, an essential ingredient in biological sequence replication." https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn

CASE OF THE CHOPPED STARFISH. "In some ways, the new system is reminiscent of Goethe's poem, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in which the apprentice smashes a magic mop with an axe, producing many exact replicas of the sweeper, all programmed to do the same job." https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn

CRYSTAL REPLICATION. "The idea that crystals can self-replicate was first presented by organic chemist and molecular biologist Graham Cairns-Smith in 1965." https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn

ABANDONED HYPOTHESIS. "He proposed, as well, that such crystals might have been the first chemical self-replicators capable of Darwinian evolution. His theory was controversial at the time, and his ideas have never gained widespread support." https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn

CRYSTAL ADAPTATION. "DNA tile crystals can be programmed to process information during growth, allowing them to adapt to their environment. Our findings could even form the basis of novel molecular technologies for making complex self-replicating nanoscale objects." https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn