More on the origin of life.

New research into the development of life seems to favor the metabolism first crowd. Various organic compounds made by modern cells could have formed directly in the archean seas.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140425075235.htm

A reconstruction of Earth's earliest ocean in the laboratory revealed the spontaneous occurrence of the chemical reactions used by modern cells to synthesize many of the crucial organic molecules of metabolism (bottom pathway). Whether and how the first enzymes adopted the metal-catalyzed reactions described by the scientists remain to be established.

Credit: Molecular Systems Biology / Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License (CC BY-NC 3.0)