Re: Paper: prebiotic RNA synthesis?

Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
In the latest Nature. Very cool chemistry. But whether it has
anything to with how life originated on earth remains to be seen.
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.471.html

That link is to a Nature news article. The research article and the
Perspective piece by Jack Shostak require a subscription.
Googling will find you lots of news and commentary about this
research.

Thanks, Jim. Interesting - I may have seen some coverage on this in
Science as well. The statement about the phosphate group is especially
intriguing. Since phosphate is key to modern energy processing, it was
interesting that it so significantly affected the RNA synthesis. To me
one of the keys to life is the selection of a reaction for energy
storage with an energy gap that is in the range of typically available
redox reactions. You can transfer electrons til the cows come home,but
you aren't going anywhere until you can store that energy in a
convenient form.

Bill

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