section_path: Early evolution of organisms
section_name: Early evolution of organisms
paragraph_text: Early evolution of organisms
  
  All organisms that exist today possess a self-replicating informational molecule (genome), and such an informational molecule is likely intrinsic to life. Thus, the earliest organisms also presumably possessed a self-replicating informational molecule (genome), perhaps RNA or an informational molecule more primitive than RNA. The specific nucleotide sequences in all currently extant organisms contain information that functions to promote survival, reproduction, and the ability to acquire resources necessary for reproduction, and sequences with such functions probably emerged early in the evolution of life. It is also likely that survival sequences present early in the evolution of organisms included sequences that facilitate the avoidance of damage to the self-replicating molecule and promote the capability to repair such damages that do occur. Repair of some of the genome damages in these early organisms may have involved the capacity to use undamaged information from another similar genome by a process of recombination (a primitive form of sexual interaction).