The RNA World hypothesis describes a period of time during the origins of life in which RNA molecules performed all catalysis and were the only form of information storage. A great deal of evidence has been obtained in support of this hypothesis, however a few key demonstrations are lacking. The first demonstration is of a molecule capable of self-replication that could have plausibly arisen from the prebiotic soup. Previously in the Lehman Laboratory, a 198-nucleotide RNA was discovered that could be fragmented into as many as four pieces ranging from 39-63 nucleotides in length. When these pieces were incubated together in a test tube, they reformed the necessary covalent bonds to regenerate the full-length 198-nucleotide RNA.