The prebiotic emergence of protocells is an important part of chemical origin of life. This study shows that cyclic-phospholipids formed from fatty acids and glycerol could have played a role by generating a heterogeneous library of vesicles with diverse morphologies and tolerance to a range of metal ions, temperature, and pH.
So is the theory that life started as two separate self-perpetuating processes (membranes and nucleic acids) that eventually joined together?