became the study of how... simple molecules were interconnected one into another. ...The [simple] molecules ...containing ...up to about twenty carbo… - Nick Lane

Now, if we get to complex life and we get beyond organic life forms into artificial intelligence, post-biological, then anything goes and maybe that's what we should be looking for.

The DNA code is inert... stored safely... For daily use the cell relies on disposable photocopies... made of RNA... composed of similar building blocks... spun out on a single strand rather than the... double helix.

[W]e can't agree among ourselves, as an origins of life community, what were the conditions... under which life arose on earth. ...Within the field itself, probably the leading candidate... would be terrestrial geothermal systems, starting with and powered by UV radiation. There's been a lot of rather beautiful chemistry... in a terrestrial environment in some kind of geothermal pool... and cyanide chemistry, it works well as chemistry. The problem I have with that is that it doesn't link up very well to biochemistry of cells. I'm a biochemist and I would like to see some continuity between and , and there's not much there, to me. That doesn't mean that it's wrong. It's just that... [I] would like to see some continuity.