Scientists Develop New Method to Investigate Origin of Life
(
PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational
method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth.
The team's method has the potential to trace the evolutionary histories of
proteins all the way back to either cells or viruses, thus settling the
debate once and for all over which of these life forms came first.
"We have just begun to tap the potential power of this method," said Randen
Patterson, a Penn State assistant professor of biology and one of the
project's leaders. "We believe, if it is possible at all, that it is within
our grasp to determine whether viruses evolved from cells or vice-versa."
The new computational method will be described in a paper to be published in
a future issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. The journal also will post the paper on the early on-line section
of its Web site sometime during the week ending 6 September 2008.
