Will anyone here be really surprised if it turns out ribosomes are duplicating machines designed by some alien race?
The entire process of reading the DNA code and turning it into proteins is just amazing.
The entire process of reading the DNA code and turning it into proteins is just amazing.
I do think about this as well. The complexity, the reliability, the ability for nature to do what she does even in the face of all the thermal noise and viruses and enviroment, it really seems like there must be someone making it happen. Alas, no though! As far as we can tell, it's all just evolution and chance on a planet wide stage with microscopic actors. If anything, I think this makes nature even more exciting and awesome (in the true sense of the word). That she did so much with so little is stupefying to me.
Ribosomes just turn RNA into protein. Don't forget about DNA and RNA polymerase, which are both very interesting as well.
It's really mechanical, but in a way that appeared to happen randomly by evolution, not through design.