It seems as though “warmth+clay” does not RNA make. For those interested, just a short update.
“The results are surprising and in some ways disappointing. It seems that hot acidic waters containing clay do not provide the right conditions for chemicals to assemble themselves into ‘pioneer organisms.'”
Professor Deamer said that amino acids and DNA, the “building blocks” for life, and phosphate, another essential ingredient, cling to the surfaces of clay particles in the volcanic pools.
“The reason this is significant is that it has been proposed that clay promotes interesting chemical reactions relating to the origin of life,” he explained.
“However,” he added, “in our experiments, the organic compounds became so strongly held to the clay particles that they could not undergo any further chemical reactions.”