• Life Be­fore the LUCA

    by Roberto — Sum­mer is a time for pon­der­ing and Sum­mer is reach­ing its peak in the North­ern hemi­sphere. The ex­tremely hot and hu­mid weather now so per­va­sive in many lo­ca­tions might, in some bod­ies, feel like a hy­drother­mal vent.

  • An Il­lus­trated Tree

    by Roberto — From the fun­da­men­tal con­cepts of bio­lo­gy, the fact that all or­gan­isms now alive share a com­mon an­ces­tor (LUCA) ranks as one of my fa­vo­rites. When I pause to con­si­der that, des­pite four bil­lion years of evo­lu­tion and di­ver­gence, my ri­bo­so­mal RNA shares some stret­ches of se­quence iden­ti­ty with all other au­to­no­mous or­gan­isms, I still get goose bumps...