Monday, May 14, 2018

$5 Million Award to Answer the Origin of Life

Article Written By: Juliana Zadarko

 


Image: Wikimedia Commons

Recently, the Evolution 2.0 contest has launched and will continue until 2026. This competition asks the age-old question: how was DNA created and how can laboratories recreate this process?

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) forms the building blocks needed for life. Divided into four bases (adenine [A], thymine [T], cytosine [C], and guanine [G]), the DNA molecules form 64 codon triplets with one of 20 amino acids. These structures then join as proteins.

Competition entries will be judged by Harvard biologist George Church and Oxford University’s Denis Noble. Perry Marshall, contest organizer and founder of Natural Code, created the contest in hopes of inspiring a discovery that could revolutionize research in biology and artificial intelligence.

Through a further understanding of DNA, humanity could finally being to gain insight on how consciousness is created. Furthermore, the discovery would impact studies in artificial intelligence, allowing the potential for evolving, naturally-occurring code.

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