In the beginning there was. .. information

All life forms we know work on the same principle cells surrounded by lipid membranes, with DNA as the storage medium of genetic information, RNA for diverse information transfer purposes, and proteins to carry out mechanical and chemical functions. This uniformity is convenient for students who read biochemistry, because most knowledge can readily be generalized. However, as only the analysis of diversity patterns allows us to trace back the family history of molecular biology, this also means that we don t know anything about the time before evolution invented the cell and the DNA/protein machinery. 

To this day, copying and spreading genetic information is what life is all about. All the visible parts of living organisms (phenotype) have evolved because they were able to assist this purpose in one way or the other. Considering that life essentially is a molecular data copying machinery, we will be less surprised to learn that evolution has produced some clever computational devices on the way. 

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