Getting Past the RNA World: The Initial Darwinian Ancestor
- Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0347
- Correspondence: yarus{at}colorado.edu
SUMMARY
A little-noted result of the confirmation of multiple premises of the RNA-world hypothesis is that we now know something about the dawn organisms that followed the origin of life, perhaps over 4 billion years ago. We are therefore in an improved position to reason about the biota just before RNA times, during the era of the first replicators, the first Darwinian creatures on Earth. An RNA congener still prominent in modern biology is a plausible descendent of these first replicators.
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