I have returned from a fascinating week in Prague, where I attended the Templeton Foundation funded IdeasLab “Bringing Chemistry, Physics and Computing to Life”. See announcement. This was a wonderful opportunity to connect with other early-career researchers, and brainstorm novel approaches to researching the origins of life. The IdeasLab format is fascinating, forcing us to come up with many new ideas, riff off of others’ ideas, and integrate them together into emergent multidisciplinary research plans that break disciplinary barriers.