Protocells are the simplest, most primitive living systems, you can think of. However, creating an artificial protocell is far from simple. One of the challenges is to create the information strings that can be inherited by cell offspring, including protocells. Such information strings are like modern DNA or RNA strings, and they are needed to control cell metabolism and provide the cell with instructions about how to divide. Now using a a virtual computer experiment, researchers in Denmark have discovered information strings with peculiar properties.