For a very long time, we’ve known that we can combine the basic elements that were available oh so long ago and create amino acids, the basic building blocks of life. In fact, Julia Child could have told you this. And who wants to get into a symantic scrap with Julia Child? It’s a good kick in the teeth to the common Creationist dismissal of evolutionary theory that says that life didn’t just happen. Sure, amino acids are not alive, but we can see that they’re integral to the process of life, and the fact that we can make them out of what was readily available at the time is pretty compelling in it’s own right.

However, we can now go one better. Science Daily has an article today that talks about an intriguing finding. They have, those wacky Italian researchers, been able to build RNA using warm water.

Now, Ernesto Di Mauro and colleagues found that ancient molecules called cyclic nucleotides can merge together in water and form polymers over 100 nucleotides long in water ranging from 40-90 ¬?C — similar to water temperatures on ancient Earth.

Obviously I’m oversimplifying. It’s not like you warm up some tea and presto, there’s some RNA, but it’s an interesting finding. Give it a read.

Jim