A team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Milan has discovered some unexpected forms of liquid crystals of ultrashort DNA molecules immersed in water, providing a new scenario for a key step in the emergence of life on Earth.
CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark said the team found that surprisingly short segments of DNA, life's molecular carrier of genetic information, could assemble into several distinct liquid crystal phases that "self-orient" parallel to one another and stack into columns when placed in a water solution. Life is widely believed to have emerged as segments of DNA- or RNA-like molecules in a prebiotic "soup" solution of ancient organic molecules.
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Some months ago I made a (seemingly idle) threat to follow up my basic concepts posts on polar and non-po
As promised at the end of my post on polar and non-polar molecules, here's a basic concepts post on
What list of basic concepts would be complete without a primer on polar and non-polar molecules?
A mysterious gap in posting? Must be finals time! As of now I'm done. We'll see how they went. One of them went well for sure, the other sort of depends. My own students are having their own exams as well, and I've got my fingers crossed for them.
How long before AIG starts to twitter and fret about this?