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Origins of life

Systems chemistry on early Earth

Understanding how life emerged on Earth is one of the greatest challenges facing modern chemistry. A new way of looking at the synthesis of RNA sidesteps a thorny problem in the field.

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Figure 1: Theories of prebiotic syntheses of pyrimidine ribonucleotides.

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Szostak, J. Systems chemistry on early Earth. Nature 459, 171–172 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/459171a

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