Nature is reporting on a new research, in which scientists managed to create an artificial RNA molecule in an environment which is believed to be what the oceans looked like in the early Earth. ScienseNews has this in a bit more readable form.
RNA is one of the most important players in the DNA replication process inside every cell of every organism, but because it's simpler than DNA, some scientists believe early life had only RNA and not the more complex DNA. Viruses, for example, are nothing more than an RNA molecule, and they rely on the replication mechanisms of the cells they infect to multiply.
The importance of this finding is that so far, while scientists had a good explanation for the evolution of species from primitive life forms up to the complex and diverse life we see today, they didn't have a good explanation to how it started in the first place. They had a theory, but they couldn't prove it. They couldn't show how molecules combined into organic life forms. This, of course, gave ground to "intelligent design" proponents, who claimed that only an intelligent being could have combined the ingredients into life. They did, however, fail to show evidence to the existence of such a being. The new finding shows that no external intervention was needed – life can indeed start spontaneously, given the right conditions.
Like with every first step, there is more work to be done. The primordial soup of the oceans wasn't exactly like a controlled lab environment. But it will most likely be easier from here.
