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SUMMARY:What mathematics tell us about the nature of life ... more than 3\
 ,800\,000\,000 years ago! - Professor Nigel Goldenfield (UIUC)
DTSTART:20141106T180000Z
DTEND:20141106T190000Z
UID:TALK54656@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Joe Tomkinson
DESCRIPTION:Relics of early life\, preceding even the last universal commo
 n ancestor of all life on Earth\, are present in the structure of the mode
 rn day canonical genetic code --- the map between DNA sequence and amino a
 cids that form proteins. The code is not random\, as often assumed\, but i
 nstead is now known to have certain error minimisation properties. How cou
 ld such a code evolve\, when it would seem that mutations to the code itse
 lf would cause the wrong proteins to be translated\, thus killing the orga
 nism? I address this paradox\, originally due to Francis Crick\, and show 
 how dynamical systems theory leads to powerful insights about the nature o
 f very early life that are beginning to be experimentally tested.
LOCATION:MR2\, Centre for Mathematical Sciences
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