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| RNAWorld |
 Title text: Disney lore: Canonically, because of how Elsa's abiogenesis powers work, Olaf is an RNA-only organism. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by ELSA MAKING RNA - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. |
This comic humorously conflates biology and Disney World. Disney World is one of a franchise of theme parks with attractions based on various Disney movies, while RNA world hypothesis is a proposed origin of life, in which RNA acts both as the genetic material and the enzymatic machinery needed to copy it.
Ariel is the titular character from The Little Mermaid. In the film she likes to collect human artifacts; the comic replaces this with collecting nucleotides, the basic building blocks of DNA and RNA.
Ratatouille is a film about a French rat named Remy who dreams of becoming a gourmet chef. The comic conflates the soup that a chef might create for patrons to eat with "primordial soup", the environment that's believed to have existed on the early Earth when the processes of life began.
Elsa is one of the lead characters from the Frozen movies. In the film she has the magical ability to control ice and snow, and she used this power to make the snowman Olaf come to life. The comic equates this with the original emergence of life on Earth (abiogenesis, or life from non-life) through ribozyme synthesis. Ribozymes are RNA molecules that, similarly to enzymes made of protein, catalyze biochemical reactions, such as the splicing of RNA during gene expression.
The title text continues this by saying that since Elsa's ability is based on ribozymes, Olaf's machinery of life must be based only on RNA, not DNA. This fits in with the theme of RNA World. Olaf generally appears to be (by mass) mostly just snow but, in common with various ideas about the makeup of cometary ice (and the role played by them in 'seeding' the young Earth with organic molecules), might well be thoroughly imbued with carbon-rich compounds other than those inherent in his carrot nose, coal buttons, and basic twig/stick elements. "Canonically" refers to fictional canon (in this case Disney fiction), "the body of works taking place in a particular fictional world that are widely considered to be official or authoritative."
Transcript
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This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
- [Cueball, Ponytail, Jill, and another child with a dark hair (wearing Mickey/Minnie ears) are walking through an amusement park. Cueball has a water bottle and a backpack, Ponytail is looking at a map or a brochure with a helix structure shown on one page, Jill is pointing forward while holding a small stuffed toy (that looks like Stitch), and the other child has a popsicle. Cueballs, Megans, and Hairys can be seen in the background in gray. There are also a drop tower, a roller coaster, a shop, and a hot air balloon in the background.]
- Ponytail: Okay, kids, now that Ariel is done collecting nucleotides for Ratatouille’s primordial soup, let’s go watch Elsa initiate runaway ribozyme synthesis!
- [Caption below the panel:]
- Disney’s RNAWorld
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