New research from Cornell University suggests that life could have started in wet, wet clay. The study suggests that clay might have provided the perfect protective environment for life to materialize. …

Nowadays, cell membranes provide the protective barrier to DNA and RNA as the two molecules work together to churn out proteins. But the Cornell team wanted to know how they first came together in a protective environment in the first place, before cells even existed.

The scientists created a gel with clay and ocean water – both elements that were plentiful on early Earth. When they added DNA and RNA to the mix, they found that the nucleic acids were protected from the enzymes that could destroy them.