Resumen de Sugar-coated clue to life's origins
The search for life in space just got a little sweeter. Sunlight hitting ice grains in the early solar system may have formed sugar molecules on their surfaces. Those sugars include ribose, the backbone of RNA. All known life makes some use of RNA as a genetic material, and ribose, the "R" in RNA, holds the compounds that encode genetic messages. But it was unclear how ribose could be made without living organisms. Other components of cells, such as amino adds, have been showing up for years in lab simulations of the early Earth and in meteorite samples. So have molecules that resemble cell membranes. Had all these coexisted with ribose, it could have set the stage for life to evolve
