Say, in the context of finding microbial life on Mars (i.e., organisms that evolved from the start with six nucleotides, not just taking current terrestrial organisms and swapping out the nucleic acids and ribosomes).
Say, in the context of finding microbial life on Mars (i.e., organisms that evolved from the start with six nucleotides, not just taking current terrestrial organisms and swapping out the nucleic acids and ribosomes).
Oh, I misunderstood. Yeah, in that case there isn’t such an increase in risk of transcription errors. I think it’s still increased slightly, because each nucleotide could become one of five others instead of one of three others, so it might still be easier for a stray high-energy particle to cause a conversion. Depends on how they’re formed.
But, I’m not any kind of biologist.