Origins of Life On Earth & Beyond --"From Matter to Living Biology" (Weekend Feature)
Such primitive cells, or protocells (iamge below), would have been much
simpler than any of today's modern cells, which have an organization
based upon the "central dogma" of biology: DNA, containing a cell's
genetic blueprint in a string of the nucleotide bases A, T, G, and C, is
transcribed into RNA, and then factories called ribosomes translate the
RNA into the sequences of twenty amino acids that make up proteins.
These proteins run almost all of the operations of cells, from bacteria
to humans: moving, metabolizing food, disposing of waste, speeding up
and slowing down the chemical reactions that copy our genes...............
