4 ms·
Regardless - at some point "you" (or cells and genetic information that would become you) were an egg. At some point that egg was an egg, and that egg was an eg
by ALittleLight 4y ago
Regardless - at some point "you" (or cells and genetic information that would become you) were an egg. At some point that egg was an egg, and that egg was an egg, and so on all the way up n generations to asexual and single celled organisms.
- throwanem 4y agoWell yeah, but if complex self-replicating organisms aren't also very good at self-repairing, they don't self-replicate very long. Individuals do get less good at it over time, though. The structures described earlier as "shortening" are called telomeres [1], and they do actually do that, as a result of DNA copying being a physically somewhat destructive process. They're purely structural rather than informatic, though, and everyone starts out with a fresh set. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere