Number of words: 164

Look under the hood, into the cells of the life that thrives around us, and you will find master molecular replicators, the messengers of our inheritance. Today, the most common is deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. Apart from a few viruses, all life on Earth now relies on DNA to hold the information that it needs to reproduce. But the most likely players in the first games of life were molecules of the related genetic material RNA, which is more flexible than DNA because it can both carry information down the generations and also catalyze—speed up— chemical reactions, a very handy feat. And RNA still carries out all kinds of critical roles in organisms that are described by DNA, including human beings. In 1986, the Harvard Nobel laureate Walter Gilbert coined the term “RNA world” to suggest how RNAs could have dominated the story of our origins, before proteins entered the game of life.

 Excerpted from page 117 of ‘Super co-operators ’ by Martin Nowak