Life.

Where did it come from, and how is it created?

While the mystery endures, one emerging explanation called “assembly theory” proposes a process by which inanimate matter becomes organic matter via selection.

Chemist Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow is perhaps the leading proponent of this theory. In the latest video for The Well, Cronin explains:

“Assembly theory challenges the fact that life is relatively impossible. It shows that rocks wear down and produce complexity step by step. And the environment on earth helped with this cooking process,” he says.

“Life is just extremely fragile chemistry that was able to copy itself to exist,” he adds. “In a way, we (living things) are among the oldest artifacts on earth-even older than some rocks- because we constantly copy ourselves to keep going.”

If this theory is true, it may assist scientists in identifying life elsewhere in the cosmos. Cronin has collaborated with NASA in its efforts to find organisms on other planets.

But even though alien lifeforms will almost certainly look different from life on our planet, the basic laws of copying and existence will still hold true.

“For an object to exist, it must survive for a longer time than its natural life,” says Cronin. “This process to defy the law of being erased is how life starts to emerge. It is the battle to emerge from the maelstrom of randomness and persist. And it’s the simplest observation ever: copying and existence, that’s it.”