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EVOLUTION BEFORE GENES. "Our current understanding of evolution is so tightly linked to template-dependent replication of DNA and RNA molecules that the old idea from Oparin of a self-reproducing 'garbage bag' ('coacervate') of chemicals that predated fully-fledged cell-like entities seems to be farfetched to most scientists today." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

REPRODUCTION IN NATURE is not limited to organisms, nor to cells, but also the very organelles within cells, such as the mitochondrion, chloroplast and nucleus, all of which originated in an ancient foreign engulfment. Their reproduction is rather independent from the rest of the organism's cells. View in LinkedIn

DURABLE AUTOCATALYSIS. "A unifying theme in both camps has been self-sustained autocatalysis: Nature's ability to generate copies of a given entity leading to multiplication. It boosted the concentration of required molecules in Darwin's 'warm little pond' (or any relevant environment for chemical evolution), and allowed the increase of replicating (reproducing) units in a geometrical progression that makes the 'survival of the fittest' possible." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

CHEMICAL INHERITANCE. "Thus, our autocatalytic networks are capable of stably transmitting information across generations." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

COMPARTMENTAL GROWTH. "The viable cores could be considered the units that replicate and, once transmitted to the offspring compartments after the parental compartment splits (reproduces), they give raise to the same periphery; that is; there is a clear matching between a viable core ('genotype') and the periphery ('phenotype')." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

CHEMICAL UNITS OF EVOLUTION. "It should come as no surprise, our finding that independent viable autocatalytic cores embedded in a large molecular network can be considered as units of evolution, since the basic ingredients of differential growth rates and division times among potentially competing entities are fulfilled." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

MINIMAL RULES. "We demonstrate that for a catalytic network to accumulate adaptations it needs to be compartmentalized, the platonic reaction network must have multiple attractors, and some of these attractors must be selectable. The larger the number of attractors, the smaller the chance of convergence." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

POOR MAN'S NATURAL SELECTION. "Acquisition of cores by rare chemical events, and loss of cores at division, allows macromutation, limited heredity and selectability, thus explaining how a poor man's natural selection could have operated prior to genetic templates." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

CHEMICAL NETWORK CORES. "When many cores are enclosed in a compartment there is competition between cores within the same compartment, and when there are many compartments, there is between-compartment competition due to the phenotypic effects of cores and their periphery at the compartment level." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

CHEMICAL BESTIARY. "We conclude that only when a chemical reaction network consists of many such viable cores, can it be evolvable." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn