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Defining things is hard and when it comes to defining “life”... it’s not much easier. But at minimum, we’re pretty sure that to get to where we are today, life needed to replicate.

Every known cell, including all the cells in your body, came about through replication of a preceding cell, but cellular replication is waaaay too complicated. When scientists talk about how the first forms of life replicated, they have to think simpler, far simpler. Like at the molecular level (DNA).

All living things have DNA and have to copy it in order to reproduce. Problem is, copying the DNA molecule is also difficult, why start there? Let’s go even simpler! Scientists figure that RNA is a better candidate for the first replicating molecule. RNA is also found in all of life and is likewise capable of storing the instructions needed to build things, and it’s a bit simpler than DNA.

So, in 1962 MIT professor Alexander Rich first put forth the “RNA world” hypothesis that all of life we see in the world today started from RNA...

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