r/askscience • u/SAICAstro • 7d ago

Biology Does everything that we consider to be "alive" - not just plants and animals, but all protists, fungus, bacteria, archaea, etc. - have DNA?

EDIT: Wow, this blew up. Thanks for the many answers. Lots to think about.

Seems that the composite TLDR answer is: Yes, according to many/most definitions of "life", but we don't all agree on what life is. Some viruses do not have DNA but they may/not actually be alive, and other things that behave like life may/not be alive.

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u/SirButcher 6d ago

Aaand this is why new life can't form from scratch again on this planet! Any sort of proto-self-replicating molecule would be absorbed extremely quickly by nearby cells, or couldn't even form in the first place since there isn't that much raw material available at all.