A team from the University of Illinois has uncovered surprising evolutionary links between the genetic code and tiny protein fragments called dipeptides. By analyzing billions of dipeptide sequences ...

Chemists at UCL have shown how two of biology’s most fundamental ingredients, RNA (ribonucleic acid) and amino acids, could have spontaneously joined together at the origin of life four billion years ...

For example, one of the cornerstones of conventional views of genetic code evolution rests on the famous Urey-Miller experiment of 1952, which attempted to simulate the conditions on early Earth that ...

Oceans churned with lava. Air filled thick with smoke. Asteroids stormed down incessantly. Life during the Hadean Eon four billion years ago was a struggle, and yet that was when it began. 1,2 With no ...

When the first spark of life emerged on a young, ocean-covered Earth some four billion years ago, it didn’t happen at once. The process was slow and drawn out over eons, with lifeless chemicals slowly ...