It has been more than 65 years since James Watson and Francis Crick, working with Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins discovered that DNA – the basic chemical information code of all life forms – has a double helical structure that played an important role in its function. Since then, astrobiologists have tried to conjure up the myriad forms and shapes in which life could be found on other planets. And a significant part of that imagination requires figuring out the permutations and combinations in which DNA could be assembled in such extraterrestrial organisms, as opposed to those found in living…

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