The first life on earth may be formed by a mixture of RNA and DNA

According to a recent report on the website of the British "New Scientist" magazine, a new study by British researchers found that the key components of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) can be made from the same raw materials

DNA and RNA are essential to life.

Many researchers suspect that RNA first appeared, and as life became increasingly complex, the ability to make DNA was developed, and DNA eventually replaced RNA as a carrier of genes

The components of RNA and DNA are called nucleotides

In the latest study, John Sutherland and his colleagues at the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridge, UK, used simple carbon-based chemicals to create two nucleotides of DNA

Sutherland's team combined RNA nucleotides with new DNA nucleotides to obtain a full set of 4 nucleotides

Sutherland said: "When we studied RNA and DNA, we found that they are closely related.

Camilla Mochowska of the University of Strasbourg in France said: "This chemical reaction is really impressive and shows that RNA and DNA may coexist

Previously, researchers also found evidence that DNA may have formed very early