Recent developments in systems chemistry have shown how the molecular building blocks of life could have arisen from plausible prebiotic feedstocks. This Perspective argues that we remain a long way from a full picture and speculates on what pieces of the puzzle are still missing.

Great info if you’re interested in the state of the art on how abiogenesis might work.

I also didn’t realise LUCA was so sophisticated already until I read this. The story it tells is that very basic life was already widespread in the Hadean era, and when the late heavy bombardment hit and the Earth was resurfaced, only life around a hydrothermal vent (or vents) survived, with one long-term survivor going on to become the sole ancestor of modern life.

(If you don’t have institutional credentials, there is a pirate website by the name of “sci-hub”, with the dash. No endorsement but it’s not like you were ever going to pay 40 bucks to read this)