In 1991, De Duve proposed a hypothesis about the origin of life that did not require any deity: “the thioester world,” a compound containing carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur. On Wednesday, six scientists in London announced that they had successfully triggered in their laboratory the reactions that could have occurred in that thioester world. Understanding the origin of protein synthesis is fundamental to understanding where life came from,” Powner said in a statement. Biochemist Christian de Duve, father of the thioester world theory, reflected on gods at age 94, two years before his death. The RNA world hypothesis, proposed by U.S. biologist Alexander Rich in 1962, posits that this versatile molecule was the first hereditary genetic information in early living organisms.