Hud’s molecule uses only two chemical letters, compared with RNA’s four, and the repeating units can easily come apart. That means it doesn’t have the informational content of RNA, an essential characteristic of life.

The molecules seem to seek one another out, reacting without a lot of chemical coaxing. Hud and others say this ease of creation is essential for reactions to have taken place in the chaotic chemical cauldron of early Earth.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/rna/ 

Now, Hud's team have found that the presence of certain compounds can stabilise a growing strand of DNA. The compounds are known as intercalators - ... holding the structure in place with non-covalent interactions. The compounds have been termed midwife molecules by the team, since once the polymer is formed they are no longer needed.
'Our work suggests that there might be been a planar midwife molecule involved in the very beginnings of life on Earth,' Hud says. 'But it remains unidentified, and may not even still be around.'

'This study shows very nicely that a combination of nucleic acids and structurally unrelated molecules is more likely to produce a self-replicating system - and thus life - than nucleic acids alone,' 

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/March/08031001.asp 

A Approximate Jewel Heart

 The amplituhedron looks like an intricate, multifaceted jewel in higher dimensions. Encoded in its volume are the most basic features of reality that can be calculated, “scattering amplitudes,” which represent the likelihood that a certain set of particles will turn into certain other particles upon colliding.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/amplituhedron-jewel-quantum-physics/