Amino acids and many other organic compounds tend to form microspheres in solution. The process is a kind of selective mutual adsorption in response to the surrounding charged molecules of water. In fact, the water molecules form a polarized film around the microsphere. This behavior is found in the hydrophilic and hydrophobic behavior of the protein and lipid components, respectively, of cell membranes. In other words, such orientation of molecules and formation of microspheres is common and may parallel the behavior of cells and their membranes. This observation is strengthened by onelast one. The microspheres can accumulate certain substances from their watery environment by selective absorption. This, too, parallels the uptake of substances from their environments by cells through their semipermeable membranes.
Now what can be said regarding the emergence of informed proteins? Very little, and this is a major problem in the study of the spontaneous origin of life on earth. In addressing the problem this way, we have narrowed down the central issue. Instead of asking, How do we get living cells from a nonliving environment? we are asking, How do we get informed proteins from noninformed ones? This restatement of the problem helps us see the problem more clearly. Here the problem has two parts. First, we need to find how an uninformed protein can act like an informed one and, second, we need to find, then, a way it could be formed. The second part of the problem says that it must be formed from some kind of information-containing template. We will return to the problem of templates after first discussing the origin of nucleic acids and the emergence of cellular life. Returning to the first aspect of the problem, we can say that if a spontaneously formed, or uninformed, protein acts enzymatically, then it is acting like an informed protein. Very briefly, that brings us back to something like reflexive catalysis as a possible way both to generate such a protein and to advance a theory on the emergence of living systems as we know them today. But, as we have seen, there are serious problems with the experimental analysis of the proposal, so far.