Is Cyanide the Secret of Life? 

A correspondent has brought THIS ARTICLE/PODCAST to my notice.

It is mainly a podcast but the transcript is also on the page. In it, the interlocuter talks to two researchers about the origin of life. The first speaker suggests that cyanide is a precursor of RNA.

His approach is to try to build molecules necessary for life from simple beginnings.

In contrast the second speaker looks at modern molecules and tries to decipher the simpler molecules from which they may have come.

For a geologist who thinks of finding the origin of life through fossils, it is intriguing to think of the search looking at the molecules which preceded the fossil!

I do not pretend to understand all that they are doing, but I am glad someone is doing it - as long as it is not me!