Researchers Make Artificial Cells That Can Replicate Themselves
A model of a protocell Janet Iwasa, Szostak Laboratory, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital via National Science Foundation Scientists have a pretty good theory for how life on Earth began: Meteorites that bombarded our planet brought simple carbon-based compounds called amino acids. Eventually, slowly, these chemicals combined to make cells, which were then able to replicate and become the increasingly complex forms of life that we have today. But researchers didn't quite understand the mechanisms through which the earliest life forms evolved; though these cells were able to replicate, they were not yet alive. Now a team of Japanese biologists has created artificial cells similar to those that might have first existed on Earth to better understand how they might have started to divide and evolve, according to a study...