Key building blocks of DNA and RNA can be made from the same raw materials. This finding suggests that instead of one or the other kick-starting life on Earth, both chemicals were involved in the ...

LIFE ON EARTH may have originated with DNA's cousin RNA, but how the modern world evolved from the RNA world is still mostly unknown. Now, in a new study published last week in the journal Nature, ...

Scientists for the first time have found strong evidence that RNA and DNA could have arisen from the same set of precursor molecules even before life evolved on Earth about four billion years ago.

Early life may have emerged from a mixture of RNA and DNA building blocks, developing the two nucleic acids simultaneously instead of evolving DNA from RNA. According to the RNA world hypothesis, ...