How life can arise from chemistry Michael Gross  Current Biology  Volume 26, Issue 24, Pages R1247-R1249 (December 2016) DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.001 Copyright © 2016 Terms and Conditions

Creative act: Rapid progress in investigations into the origin of life is adding to our understanding of how the emergence of evolving systems from prebiotic chemistry may have happened – without the need for magic. (Photo: Rama, Wikimedia Commons.) Current Biology 2016 26, R1247-R1249DOI: (10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.001) Copyright © 2016 Terms and Conditions

RNA clue: The ribosome, which makes proteins but consists of two-thirds RNA by weight and co-operates with RNA molecules including mRNA and tRNAs, is essentially a ribozyme coated in accessory proteins. This finding is one of the strongest pieces of circumstantial evidence in favour of the RNA world hypothesis. (Image: Courtesy of PDB-101 and the RCSB PDB rcsb.org) Current Biology 2016 26, R1247-R1249DOI: (10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.001) Copyright © 2016 Terms and Conditions

Fossil record: Although fossils have told us much about the evolution of plants and animals, their evidence gets sparse and harder to interpret in the earlier phases of evolution. The first replicating and evolving systems are unlikely to have left any such traces. The image shows stromatolites from the Grand Canyon. Formed as layered biofilms involving cyanobacteria, these structures may be as old as 3.7 billion years. (Image: Carl Bowman, Grand Canyon National Park Service, Flickr.) Current Biology 2016 26, R1247-R1249DOI: (10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.001) Copyright © 2016 Terms and Conditions