After a lengthy experiment with tantalizing implications for origin-of-life studies, a research group in Japan has reported creating a test tube world of molecules that spontaneously evolved both complexity and, surprisingly, cooperation. Over hundreds of hours of replication, a single type of RNA evolved into five different molecular “species” or lineages of hosts and parasites that coexisted in harmony and cooperated to survive, like the beginning of a “molecular version of an ecosystem,” said Ryo Mizuuchi, the lead author of the study and a project assistant professor at the University of Tokyo.

Their experiment, which confirmed previous theoretical findings, showed that molecules with the means to replicate could spontaneously develop complexity through Darwinian evolution, “a critical step for the emergence of life,” the researchers wrote.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-test-tubes-rna-molecules-evolve-into-a-tiny-ecosystem-20220505/