Autocatalytic Network Archives

The contentious role of RNA in early evolution. The arrow represents the evolutionary trajectory from protobiology to the biological cell, with Protogenetics and the RNA-World as critical intermediary stages. The RNA-First paradigm implicitly assumes not only that RNA was fundamental to the emergence of genetic material but that the protobiological stage itself was already dominated by RNA chemistry, which this essay argues is incompatible with the combinatorial vastness of abiotic environments. -- Life

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report

The RNA-First Fallacy: Conflating Evolutionary Ancestry with Prebiotic Primacy

by Keith CowingJune 11, 2026June 11, 2026

The RNA-World hypothesis remains the most widely accepted framework in origins-of-life research, anchored in compelling biochemical evidence for RNA’s deep evolutionary ancestry. However, this viewpoint routinely extends beyond that and […]

Self-generating Autocatalytic Networks - NASA Astrobiology

Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report

Self-generating Autocatalytic Networks: Structural Results, Algorithms And Their Relevance To Early Biochemistry

by Keith CowingJune 21, 2024June 21, 2024

The concept of an autocatalytic network of reactions that can form and persist, starting from just an available food source, has been formalized by the notion of a reflexively autocatalytic […]