The path to life's origins. Remaining hurdles.
Résumé
Recent progress in abiotic syntheses, especially self-catalytic syntheses, as well as theoretical breakthroughs such as reconstruction of events of early molecular evolution and tracing repeat expansions in contemporary genomes, converge to a rather simple possible scenario of origin of life, notwithstanding the enormity of the problem. The scenario includes self-replicating RNA duplexes, supplemented by monomers and high-energy compounds that, as demonstrated or assumed, can all be synthesized abiotically. The self-replication would proceed with occasional mutational changes, propagated in later cycles. This audacious, as it may seem, walk toward the life origin already involves many laboratories, each exploring its own scenario. The one suggested in this outline seems to the authors well justified to engage in, while bypassing few steps to deal with later.
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