The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets

One of them was an enzyme, appropriately anointed Dicer,

Because almost all enzymes are proteins and have no RNA, they are unfazed by RNase treatment.

RNA, conversely, doesn’t have one shape but millions of possible shapes.

Remarkably, about half of all useful antibiotics target bacterial ribosomes.

unusual set of Tetrahymena genes that existed as minichromosomes, each less than a thousandth the size of the smallest human chromosome. These individual DNA molecules harbored Tetrahymena’s ribosomal RNA genes.

enzyme-catalyzed reactions were extraordinarily specific;

Scientists discovered a suite of previously undetected

there were six varieties, and because they were rich in uracil (the letter U in the RNA alphabet), they had been dubbed U1 through U6.

Telomerase is produced by the rapidly growing cells in the human embryo, but this action gets turned off in most of our cells by the time we’re born. The few key exceptions include stem cells—