From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 8/28/2025 12:01 AM, Pro Plyd wrote:   
   >   
   > https://phys.org/news/2025-08-chemists-rna-proteins-early-earth.html   
   >   
   > Chemists at University College London 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 ago.   
   >   
   > Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins,   
   > the "workhorses" of life essential to nearly every   
   > living process. But proteins cannot replicate or   
   > produce themselves—they require instructions. These   
   > instructions are provided by RNA, a close chemical   
   > cousin of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).   
   >   
   > In a new study, published in Nature, researchers   
   > chemically linked life's amino acids to RNA in   
   > conditions that could have occurred on early   
   > Earth—an achievement that has eluded scientists   
   > since the early 1970s.   
   > ...   
   >   
      
   This really isn't necessary.  A few months ago we were going around   
   MarkE's usual ool gap denial and I posted about ribozyme synthetases   
   that charged tRNAs with amino acids.  This means that once RNA polymers   
   were being replicated that tRNAs could evolve and be charged with amino   
   acids by synthetases made of RNA.  My guess is that tRNAs first evolved   
   to keep needed amino acids inside of the cell.  If you bind an amino   
   acid to a tRNA it is less likely to defuse out of the cell.  Some amino   
   acids are needed to make nucleotides.  What they need to solve is why   
   RNA was first made.  My guess is that nucleotides were used for the same   
   things in the early self replicators as they are used for today.  They   
   are energy transfer molecules (ATP, GTP, CTP, TTP).  You could store the   
   nucleotides as a RNA polymer in order to keep them from being lost from   
   the early cells.  This would be before the genetic code evolved.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
      
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