Life, we now know, is nothing but a vast array of coordinated chemical reactions. The “secret” to that coordination is the breathtakingly complex set… - James Watson

To have success in science, you need some luck. But to succeed in science, you need a lot more than luck. And it's not enough to be smart — lots of people are very bright and get nowhere in life. In my view, you have to combine intelligence with a willingness not to follow conventions when they block your path forward.

Khan analyzed the data and was relieved to find that his son’s DNA was “pretty boring.” In the brave new world of personal genomics, “boring” is the new “great.”

The problem was insoluble: you cannot, we thought, have DNA without proteins, and you cannot have proteins without DNA.
RNA, however, being a DNA equivalent (it can store and replicate genetic information) as well as a protein equivalent (it can catalyze critical chemical reactions) offers an answer. In fact, in the “RNA world” the chicken-and-egg problem simply disappears. RNA is both the chicken and the egg.
RNA is an evolutionary heirloom. Once natural selection has solved a problem, it tends to stick with that solution, in effect following the maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In other words, in the absence of selective pressure to change, cellular systems do not innovate and so bear many imprints of the evolutionary past. A process may be carried out in a certain way simply because it first evolved that way, not because that is absolutely the best and most efficient way.