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I'm not sure exactly why they decided on that encoding, I suspect there is some technical reason such as error tolerance.



it's to avoid sequence features which are problematic like high GC content


Ah, interesting. In natural DNA this is achieved by using a more complex encoding scheme (3 base pairs -> one amino acid), combined with the vast majority of DNA not encoding genes directly.


well, the genetic code has presumably evolved to evolve; it's unclear that it's evolved to preserve information




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