More of that “here’s how it happened” style evidence/explanation/chemistry re: panspermia.
Anyway…what someone figured out *this time* is that certain basic compounds, when exposed to various other compounds and/or heat/light combinations, create other compounds than allow for the basic coding of genetic information.
What we have *here* specifically, is an actual compound that works as the pre-cursor, which they have previously been trying to to match to other known compounds (which failed). Now there is a “intermediate molecule” that acts as the stepping stone to the RNA model without the need for separate “sugar” and “base” molecules.
Great stuff, and hopefully in school in 20 years, the first five years of science in school will be a long, empirical and experimental proof on how life came into being (and curiously without the need for a supernatural being, just a series of chemical reactions over *to those students* an impossibly long time).
Researchers are nearing a better understanding of the chemical reactions that created life on the young planet.
NYTIMES.COM|BY NICHOLAS WADE
Robot Pirate Ninja 