A small piece of RNA copies itself, hinting at how life began

1 MARCH 2026

The Early Experiment (1953)

In 1953, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted a famous experiment simulating early Earth conditions.
They showed that organic molecules like amino acids (building blocks of proteins) could form naturally.
This supported the idea that life’s ingredients could arise from simple chemicals.
However, they did not produce genetic material like DNA or RNA, which is essential for storing and copying life’s instructions.

The “Chicken-and-Egg” Problem

Living systems require genetic material (DNA/RNA) to store information and proteins (enzymes) to copy that genetic material.
But DNA/RNA needs protein enzymes to replicate.
Proteins are made using instructions from DNA/RNA.
So which came first?

The RNA World Hypothesis

In the early 1980s, scientists discovered that RNA can act as both:
A carrier of genetic information
A catalyst (performing chemical reactions)
This led to the RNA World Hypothesis, suggesting that early life may have been based solely on RNA.
If RNA could both store information and copy itself, it could solve the chicken-and-egg problem.

QT45: The New Breakthrough

Scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology recently reported a major development in the journal Science.

They created a small RNA molecule called QT45 only 45 nucleotides long and capable of copying its own genetic information.
It is considered the first known self-replicating RNA molecule

QT45 Limitations

Conclusion

QT45 does not prove that RNA was the first genetic material. But it strongly supports the possibility.
Primitive Earth had millions of years, so even slow replication might have been enough for life to gradually emerge.