THE EVOLUTION OF INFORMATION-STORAGE AND HEREDITY

Many important transitions in evolution are associated with novel ways of storing and transmitting information. The storage of information i n DNA sequence, and its transmission through DNA replication, is a fun damental hereditary system in all extant organisms, but it is not the only way of storing and transmitting information, and has itself repla ced, and evolved from, other systems. A system that transmits informat ion can have limited heredity or indefinite heredity. With limited her edity, the number of different possible types is commensurate with, or below, that of the individuals. With indefinite heredity, the number of possible types greatly exceeds the number of individuals in any rea listic system. Recent findings suggest that the emergence and subseque nt evolution of very different hereditary systems, from autocatalytic chemical cycles to natural language, accompanied the major evolutionar y transitions in the history of life.