Chemists in the United States have made an artificial DNA-like molecule that can change its sequence to bind to a DNA template without the help of enzymes. The findings could shed light on how molecules underpinning life were first able to emerge from a chemical soup. The vexing question of how strands of DNA or RNA might have first formed has led many chemists to try and recreate the situation in the lab, using synthetic molecules that stack together to form DNA-like strands. (source: nature.com)
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