Formamide interferes with these hydrogen bonds, leading to destabilization of the helical structure of the mRNA, causing denaturation or separation of the strands.

Saladino and Di Mauro’s work on formamide suggested that the first, small RNA molecules were most likely to come together in a relatively water-free environment – like a formamide-rich lagoon.

Taken together, different formamide-meteor combinations produced everything from sugary glucose to fatty glycerol—a wide-ranging list of more than 25 different molecules used by DNA and life in ...