don't create, evolve

I've taken the recent media attention around an effort to create "artificial cells" as an excuse to revisit the boundary between non-life and life, and how life emerges from non-living material. To me, evolution removes the entire question of "creating" complexity, as complexity tends to evolve from simpler forms all by itself. What we really need to find is the point where chemicals, instead of just sitting there, start to evolve.

Based on this philosophy, I was quite underwhelmed by those artificial cells, which, in the tradition spanning from Frankenstein to Craig Venter, represent another attempt to create something with dubious credentials as a living being but still much too complex to count as an origin of life. Luckily, there has been a significant breakthrough in self-replicating ribozymes recently, so I covered this as a positive example of what I would like to see instead of all the "creator" hybris.

Anyhow, the resulting feature is out now:

Making life from scratch

Current Biology Volume 36, Issue 16, 17 August 2026, Pages R875--R877

Restricted access to full text and PDF download

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

(Unfortunately, this year's features will no longer become open access one year after publication - do contact me if you would like a PDF and the magic link has expired.)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky.

Last year's thread is here .

Mythological and fictional accounts of the origins of life feature the creation of complexity (Prometheus producing humans, in this case). As we now know that complexity evolves, we only need to find the origin of evolution. (Image: marble relief by an unknown artist courtesy of the Louvre Museum.)