The Hitchhiker's Guide to the RNA World

Dina Anastas | Pages 37-40 | BioTeach Online Journal | Vol. 1 | Fall 2003

The quest to reach a plausible hypothesis concerning the origin of life is ongoing. Today, we have conceptualized many workable hypotheses; however, a vigorous controversy has evolved over the past years concerning the nature of the origin of life. The theory of the “RNA world” that states that the first molecular systems to display the properties of self-replication and evolution were RNA molecules.