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	Podcast:		25. Early Earth and Life Processes
	Episode:		RNA
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:17
	Publish Date:		2011-07-28 08:52:04
	Description:		Transcript: If RNA was the first replicating molecule on Earth, how was it built? Fred Hoyle, a theorist in astronomy, speculated that it was incredibly unlikely to build long complex chain molecules from small pieces by chance. He said that it was as unlikely as if a whirlwind passed through a junk yard and fully assembled a jumbo jet. Turns out he was wrong because both in theory in computer simulations and in the lab simple autocatalytic networks of chemicals can rapidly build complexity, but a mechanism is needed to build long chain molecules. Biologists speculate that clay or perhaps iron pyrite on the early Earth provided the template for building long molecules. Clay is a silicate that’s reacted with water. Molecules from the organic soup could cling to the clay and the repetitious structure of the atoms in the clay was aiding the assembly of long chains. Hundred base pair sequences have been produced this way in the lab, and it’s possible that given sufficient time, long chains could be created this way. Thus, the idea of an RNA world is not so far fetched.
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