Abiogenesis is the science of how life came from non-life. This is separate and distinct from evolution, despite the common misconception that evolution has anything at all to say about how life began. It doesn’t. Evolution only describes how life changes, diversifies, and adapts over time, regardless of how it started. Further, while the science behind evolution is vast and rock solid, the science behind abiogenesis is much less mature.

This is why it is fairly monumental that ribonucleotides, the building blocks of RNA, which are in turn the building blocks of DNA, have finally been created under plausable young-Earth conditions. The ribonucleotides were created using just a sugar, a phosphate, and one of four different nitrogenous molecules. All of these ingredients are likely to have been around in the primordial ooze. The ingredients were heated, evaporated, and irradiated in ways that are are quite plausible conditions for our nascent planet.

While this hardly defines the whole process of abiogenesis, it is an important link in the chain. And it also makes the conditions for abiogenesis a little less magical or statistically unlikely, suggesting that this process may well have been repeated many times across the billions of worlds in the universe. Meaning that we might feel a little less alone today. However, whether that feeling manifests as comfort or fear is probably still contingent on whether you’re a fan of Star Trek or Alien vs. Predator.