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MOLECULAR ECOSYSTEMS. "Chemists have shown that a group of synthetic enzymes replicated, competed and evolved much like a natural ecosystem, but without life or cells." https://lnkd.in/dwfMZfe View in LinkedIn

TYPES OF COPIABLE INFORMATION. "Our theoretical work suggests that not just linear sequences but also patterns in two dimensions, similar to wallpaper patterns that repeat every so often, could also be replicated," https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn

"MINIMAL SELF-REPLICATING SYSTEMS typically consist of three components: a product molecule, and two substrate molecules that become joined to form another product molecule. An important characteristic of self-replicating systems is the ability of the product to catalyze the formation of additional product, resulting in autocatalytic behavior." https://lnkd.in/dZUKQUR View in LinkedIn

RANGE OF INFORMATION. "Having shown that information can be made to chemically self-replicate...the question becomes, what kinds of messages can be copied in this way?" https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR SPECIATION. "We have been able to monitor in real time and at a molecular level the diversification of self-replicating molecules into two distinct sets that compete for two different building blocks (‘food’) and so capture an important aspect of the process by which species may arise." https://lnkd.in/dfhRgv9 View in LinkedIn

SIMPLE DRIVERS. "Instead, the researchers relied only on simple kinds of attachments—molecular binding and unbinding reactions that they designed—and mechanical forces." https://lnkd.in/dF6far5 View in LinkedIn

MIXED RESULTS. "These remarkable discoveries have not had sufficient impact on the field and were largely abandoned because of practical difficulties inherent in manual experiments. While the basic findings were validated in some cases, they failed to be reproduced in others, and the whole line of research became abandoned." http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 View in LinkedIn

BIAS. "McConnell's results are now attributed to observer bias. No blinded experiment has ever reproduced his results of 'maze-running'. Subsequent explanations of maze-running enhancements associated with cannibalism of trained planarian worms were that the untrained flatworms were only following tracks left on the dirty glassware rather than absorbing the memory of their fodder." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian View in LinkedIn

THEORY CATCHES UP. "While modern discoveries such as epigenetic modification and RNAi now offer mechanistic explanations of some of the original results, the primary barrier to molecular-level investigations into the dynamics of memory during CNS regeneration has remained: the difficulty of developing a robust learning assay in planarians." http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 View in LinkedIn

SAMPLING SIZES. "Manual behavior experiments involve limited sample sizes, difficulties in precise reproduction of protocols, and lack of quantitative analysis. As a result of these difficulties, even the capacity for long-term memory planarians has been questioned." http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 View in LinkedIn