[sthnblllII]

> many biological molecules can be constructed from just six simple molecules, including water, methane...

There is no news here. This is just the same speculation that has been made thousands of times before for decades. Of course we can make big molecules from small ones in a lab. Of course life has to reproduce, metabolize and have a boundary from the environment. Pointing this out is not "the key to the origins of life". It is still an interesting topic, but why cant national geographic discuss these things honestly?

[dang]

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[BlueTemplar]

The NG doesn't pretend that it's news?

And of course that this is the key to the origins of life - how could we possibly make progress on this question without understanding this first?

And someone had to be the first to point this out. Which Tibor Gánti did in 1971 & 1974.

[sthnblllII]

Understanding what? The basic functions of a cell have been understood since much longer ago than 1971.

>Some consider this model a significant contribution to origin of life as it provides a philosophy of evolutionary units.[4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemoton

Read the wiki. Its just describing what a cell is and putting the word "abstract" in front of everything. It makes no prediction, it produced no results. Evidently not everyone considers it a significant contribution.

[posterboy]

> and have a boundary from the environment

This is not self evident. Maybe this is the news?

I am not sure, what are you saying?

[uoaei]

Not the person you're replying to, but: That the processes inside the boundary and those outside the boundary only interact through relatively narrow-bandwidth channels across that boundary, and that it maintains the high level of internal organization, the boundary, and the input/output channels through self-sustaining internal processes.

[bbojan]

The fact that bacteria and archea have a chemically different cell membrane strongly suggest that it evolved twice, and therefore their original ancestor didn't have one at all.

[sthnblllII]

Its part of the standard definition of life:

> organisms are open systems that maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

Cell by definition have a boundary called the cell membrane.

>Cells consist of cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(biology)