25 February 2019
Scientists create DNA-like molecule to aid search for alien life
... Bahamas, which also supported this work. And he’s not wrong. “The discovery that DNA with eight nucleotide letters is suitable for storing and transmitting information is a breakthrough in our knowledge of the range of possibilities necessary for...
July 2020
Life in the universe – common or not?
... qualification for life - and the shortest active RNAs known by experiments have a length of more than 100 nucleotides. Abiotic polymerisation of RNA has long been studied experimentally, but there are no established processes leading to the...
06 March 2020
Life in the Universe could be common, but not near us says study
... strung together makes the shape of a soccer ball. RNA on the other hand is made of monomers called nucleotides and each nucleotide is made up of three components: a pentose (five-carbon) sugar called ribose, a nitrogenous base and a phosphate group...
30 November 2020
Researchers discover solid phosphorus in comet 67P
... it occurs in some more reduced and possibly more soluble form - the type that cells need for nucleotide synthesis (nucleotides are required for cell growth and replication). But, it takes more than phosphorus for life...
April 2019
Scanning the skies for exoplanets
... 3844 b doesn’t have any either. “Life as we know it requires liquid water and complex molecules (amino acids, nucleotides). Such molecules cannot survive in temperatures greater than 200 degrees Celsius (C) and water cannot exist in a liquid...
29 August 2016
Dust is the key to producing complex organic molecules in space
... formation of amino acids and can react with another sugar, propenal, to produce ribose. Ribose is an important component of nucleotides, and is found in ribonucleic acid (RNA). This molecule along with its cousin ethylene glycol (CH2OH)2, the...
