"........all living things on earth , are composed of different permutations and combinations of the same basic amino acids , just 20 different varieties. On their own, , amino acid have no intrinsic biological properties -they are not living molecules. Joined together to make proteins, however, they become the very stuff of life. There are indeed more amino acids than the 20 used in the manufacturing of proteins; the fact that all living things on our planet use the same 20 building blocks of life, in much the same way, is one of the strongest hints that we are all descended from the same single original molecule that learned the trick of life, the trick of extracting energy from environment and using it to make copies of itself. Other molecules may, have learnt the same tricks at more or less the same time. But only one variety, it seems, won out in the struggle for survival and has left descendants on earth today, "----From In search of Double Helix, Quantum physics and life by John Gribbin
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 16:33:55 +0000
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