Bookmarked Origin of life: The RNA world by Walter Gilbert (Nature volume 319, page618 (1986))

UNTIL recently, when one thought of the varied molecular processes at the origin of life, one imagined that the first self-replicating systems consisted of both RNA and protein. RNA served to hold information, whereas protein molecules provided all the enzymic activities needed to make copies of RNA and to reproduce themselves. The cycle that developed a self-replicating system out of the primitive soup of amino acids and nucleotides had two radically different components.

ᔥ Michael Marshall in He may have found the key to the origins of life. So why have so few heard of him? (12/23/2020 09:03:11)