The prebiotic replication of DNA and RNA is a complex interplay between chemistry and the
environment. Factors that have direct and indirect effects on prebiotic chemistry include …

Darwin's assertion that “it is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life” is no longer
valid. By synthesizing origin of life (OoL) research from its inception to recent findings, with a …

Coded ribosomal peptide synthesis could not have evolved unless its sequence and amino
acid–specific aminoacylated tRNA substrates already existed. We therefore wondered …

Templated ligation offers an efficient approach to replicate long strands in an RNA world.
The 2′, 3′-cyclic phosphate (> P) is a prebiotically available activation that also forms …

Dew is a common form of water that deposits from saturated air on colder surfaces. Although
presumably common on primordial Earth, its potential involvement in the origin of life in early …

We propose a model for the replication of primordial protocell genomes that builds upon
recent advances in the nonenzymatic copying of RNA. We suggest that the original …

The virtual circular genome (VCG) model was proposed as a means of going beyond
template copying to indefinite cycles of nonenzymatic RNA replication during the origin of …

The nonenzymatic copying of RNA is thought to have been necessary for the transition
between prebiotic chemistry and ribozyme-catalyzed RNA replication in the RNA World. We …

The emergence of evermore complex entities from prebiotic building blocks is a key aspect
of origins of life research. The RNA-world hypothesis posits that RNA oligomers known as …

The central question in the origin of life is to understand how structure can emerge from
randomness. The Eigen theory of replication states, for sequences that are copied one base …