Cellular origins in a viral world

The discovery of an unusual hybrid virus living in one of the harshest environments on the planet suggests a solution to the conundrum of how RNA-based life 'updgraded' to DNA-based life. More

P.S. A good phrase: "It's a mythological beast of a virus, but it actually exists.”

Climbing in 190 dimensions

Those who have looked at the night sky—not the dim remnant visible in cities, but the bright complexity seen in high, dark places—can appreciate the task assumed by Wochner et al [who] describe the construction of an RNA enzyme (a template-dependent primed RNA polymerase) that emulates an ancient molecule that would have been crucial in the “RNA world,” believed to have predated DNA- and protein-based life. To find this enzyme, they searched vast molecular populations, holding potentially many, many more RNAs than the visible universe has stars...

...An RNA polymerase capable of Darwinian evolution is now a large step closer. In the old days (say, 2007), we could template product RNAs that were only 8 to 11% as long as the polymerase. Now we are at 48%. One prediction of the 190-dimensional view is that there is likely to be a route leading up to longer RNA transcripts, if only we can find it. With luck, the very next slopes will take us to Darwinian altitudes, where we have not been before...

-- from Climbing in 190 Dimensions by Michael Yarus

Warm little pond

[John D. Sutherland] has solved a problem that for 20 years has thwarted researchers trying to understand the origin of life — how the building blocks of RNA, called nucleotides, could have spontaneously assembled themselves in the conditions of the primitive earth. The discovery, if correct, should set researchers on the right track to solving many other mysteries about the origin of life. It will also mean that for the first time a plausible explanation exists for how an information-carrying biological molecule could have emerged through natural processes from chemicals on the primitive earth.