• Question: What would happen if DNA didn't exist?

    Asked by on 3 Jan 2019. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Gemma Chandratillake

      Gemma Chandratillake answered on 3 Jan 2019:

      Well, before DNA, we think there was a self-replicating system (life-form?) based on RNA (which is similar but less stable.) I don’t think we can imagine a non-DNA/RNA-based life-form, we have no idea what it would look like. When we search for life on other planets, we search for evidence of DNA. So, I guess my answer is “no DNA, no life” (though there are so many planets there may well be some completely different type of coding molecule out there!)

    • Photo: Judith Sleeman

      Judith Sleeman answered on 4 Jan 2019:

      I think another molecule to carry information would have evolved if DNA hadn’t done so. Before it was known that DNA carried the hereditary information, proteins were though to be responsible: maybe in an alternate universe something we couldn’t even imagine could have done the job?

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