The design of artificial catalysts able to compete with the catalytic proficiency of enzymes is
an intense subject of research. Non-covalent interactions are thought to be involved in …

The origin of life is a fascinating, unresolved problem whose deciphering would have
important scientific, epistemological and social implications. Over time, philosophers and …

Although there are no fundamental factors hindering the development of nanoscale
structures, there is a growing realization that “engineering down” approaches, in other words …

Self‐replication is a fundamental concept. The idea of an entity that can repeatedly create
more of itself has captured the imagination of many thinkers from von Neumann to …

Hydrogen bonds are like human beings in the sense that they exhibit typical grouplike
behavior. As an individual they are feeble, easy to break, and sometimes hard to detect …

Reversible covalent bond formation under thermodynamic control adds reactivity to self-
assembled supramolecular systems, and is therefore an ideal tool to assess complexity of …

THE production of amino acids and their condensation to polypeptides under plausibly
prebiotic conditions have long been known1, 2. But despite the central importance of …

Simple replicating molecules are likely to have played a critical role in the origin of life.
Recent experiments show that non-enzymatic replication is conceivable in a wide range of …

The importance of autocatalysis spans from practical applications such as in chemically
amplified photoresists, to autocatalysis playing a fundamental role in evolution as well as a …

Watson and Crick discovered the DNA double helix in 1953 and realized immediately that its
replication involved a templated synthesis. 1 Their work inspired Todd to suggest in 1956 …