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Prion Evolution
Jan. 4th, 2010 12:37 pmWell... I guess the creationists will be up in arms.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8435320.stm
Prions are capable of adapting and evolving via protein folding and protein folding is how you get RNA and DNA.
I know. You imagine they'll just ignore the evidence as usual but... This is kind of the missing link between lifeless chemical reactions and living creatures.
We've been able to produce amino acids out of base chemicals for many decades now. If prion folding behavior can be decoded, we can make a synthetic environment to accelerate the process that compacts them into a structure like RNA or DNA and from there, you can get a completely man-made organism without borrowing pieces from anything else.
This is also potentially quite exciting for the development of self-replicating nano machines.
Hurray future!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8435320.stm
Prions are capable of adapting and evolving via protein folding and protein folding is how you get RNA and DNA.
I know. You imagine they'll just ignore the evidence as usual but... This is kind of the missing link between lifeless chemical reactions and living creatures.
We've been able to produce amino acids out of base chemicals for many decades now. If prion folding behavior can be decoded, we can make a synthetic environment to accelerate the process that compacts them into a structure like RNA or DNA and from there, you can get a completely man-made organism without borrowing pieces from anything else.
This is also potentially quite exciting for the development of self-replicating nano machines.
Hurray future!
