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insomniasexx  ·  3920 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Origin of Life!

    Biologists like Jack Szostak are trying to take that step, by producing simple chemical systems that can transition into systems exhibiting life-like characteristics. The result would be revealing a scientific “holy grail”: understanding the pathway (or pathways) to life.

Can you go a bit deeper into how he / the scientific community is attempting to find this "holy grail"? Specifically, how does one go about finding out about, and then eventually replicating/experimenting with, the conditions and chemistry that were around before there was life? I understand how we can dig up dinosaur fossils and put the pieces together to gain insights about size, diet, mating, etc. But how do you do this with the itty-bitty bits of chemistry before they were biological?