Genome Chapter 1: Life Summary

   The chapter begins by attempting to relate awe that Matt Ridley feels when he thinks of the odds that placed him at the precise moment, time, and species to allow him to understand the discoveries made by scientists in mapping the human genome.  Ridley goes on to explain life as beginning as a single word.  The development of a replicating recipe is ultimately the development of life.  The three letter words come together to create and regulate orderly systems called animals.  Ridley goes on to cite Aristotle's original idea of information theory and then transitions to the scientists that were integral to genetic discoveries: Francis Crick, James Watson, etc...  Ridley describes Oswald Avery's work in experimenting with bacterial transformations in an attempt to identify the true function of DNA and its bases.  Ridley asserts that like a well designed machine, "life, too, is digital information written in DNA" (16). The chapter moves on to identify the 120 letter long gene on Chromosome 1 that codes for the production of a type of RNA that comes together to form protein assembling ribosomes.  Citing evidence such as its ability to replicate itself, Ridley introduces the theory that RNA developed before the rise of Proteins and DNA.  DNA and proteins arose to facilitate the replication of the fragile RNA molecules.  A theory is also introduced that supposes that bacteria were not at the origin of life.  Rather, protozoan like creatures were.  Ridley concludes the chapter by noting the universal quality that the language of DNA has across all organisms.  The fact that all genetic code is universal across all organisms means that we were all descended from one point of creation.