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Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by kaba0 on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @01:17PM (#25931702)
Life is not built on ‘binary’, there are 4 bits. All four nucleotides take part in the encoding (reading happens on one thread only).

And since life was presumably started with RNA, we are still talking about 4 base elems

Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by WClayFerguson on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @02:14PM (#25932510)
It's perfectly legitimate to say life stores information using only two "types" of things (AT or GC) which can be oriented one way or another, which is a "binary choice of the type". I explain it that way because it reaches a wider audience (easier to visualize)

However there's always at least one stickler who wants to quibble that the orientation is also a "binary bit" of information. Congratulations, you're him today!!

Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by kaba0 on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @02:20PM (#25932587)
I did think about that, that’s why I added the second paragraph, namely that what about RNAs? (Since presumably they precede the DNA world) They can self-bind (I don’t know the proper nomenclature in English), but by all means they have 4 bases.
Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by WClayFerguson on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @03:55PM (#25933793)
There's two kinds of base pairs, is identical to there's 4 kinds of bases.
Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by kaba0 on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @04:38PM (#25934343)
RNAs are a single chain. Your point makes no sense.

A code with a 4 letter alphabet would be 2 letter, if it happened to use a parity “bit” or other error correction info?

Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by WClayFerguson on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @08:11PM (#25936772)
I never said RNA was built on two types of molecules. I said DNA was.