Wolfgang Nitschke and Michael J. Russell have proposed a race to beat the acetyl coenzyme A-pathway to the origin of life. I see no alternative stance to the one they hold assuming a continuity of biology from its begginings to the present day. Their considerations of how a primordial metabolism could arise on the Hadean planet are the best treatment of the subject known to me. No mystery how to “hydrogenate carbon” – Michael’s reduction of life’s primary activity on the planet – and arrive from carbon dioxide and hydrogen (with the help of metals of course!) to acetate or formamide. (more…)