• Question: How did life on earth begin?

    Asked by 565gdge33 to Jimi, Hayley, Chris on 17 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Jimi Wills

      Jimi Wills answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      Nice!

      Life probably started from something like RNA. RNA is like a cross between DNA, which carries information, and protein, which carries out activities. RNA is capable for both carrying information and doing stuff at the molecular level.

      The first life, was probably a random chain of RNA (or something like it, PNA) that just happened to be able to replicate itself.

      The building blocks of RNA (or PNA) are actually very difficult to make randomly… even in the conditions we had early on in Earth’s history. One theory is that the building blocks actually came to earth on an asteroid, delivered from another place in the universe where conditions where better suited for these building blocks to occur randomly. Very cool!

    • Photo: Hayley Moulding

      Hayley Moulding answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      I believe that all life derived from a very very simple cell, that over time changed to meet its environment. It is all very complicated and I don’t fully understand it and probably never will. I just know that everything was very simple and it needed to change and adapt to get a lot more complicated. That is how we became us humans!

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