One fascinating detail on how the RNA adapted to its environment: Spiegelman was giving each generation very little time to reproduce. This created an environment favorable to RNA strings that could reproduce quickly. These strings were shorter, reducing the amount of time they needed to reproduce.

I learned about this "monster" from reading a Great Courses book on Information Science. Apparently the molecular "organism" is fascinating to information theorists because it evolved to have less information in response to an environment where more information, and the burden of longer-replication times, was unfavorable.