Question

after studying a freshly discovered meteor, you are astounded to find a single - celled organism living in it, representing the worlds first extraterrestrial life - form. after extensive biochemical tests, you determine that the organism uses the same nucleotides as life on earth, that it has 50 different amino acids used for synthesizing proteins, but that each \codon\ consists of four nucleotide bases, not three, resulting in 256 possible 4 - base combinations. based on this information, does this genetic code fit our definition for redundant or universal? redundant universal neither

Explanation:

• Redundant: A redundant genetic code means that multiple codons can code for the same amino acid. Here, there are 256 possible 4 - base combinations (codons) and 50 amino acids. Since \(256>50\), there are more codons than amino acids. So, it is likely that multiple codons will code for the same amino acid, which is the characteristic of a redundant genetic code.
• Universal: The universal genetic code refers to the fact that, for the most part, the same codons code for the same amino acids across all life forms on Earth. This is an extraterrestrial life - form. Just because it uses the same nucleotides as Earth life does not make its code universal (in the context of Earth's definition of universal, which is about Earth - based life forms sharing a common code).

Answer:

redundant