Hanczyc's Oil Drop Life

I found a Nature News article discussing Hanczyc's oil drop life which was also the subject of the TED talk I saw. My opinion is that this is a system that has life-like behavior but is not relevant to the origin of life. They are nitrobenzene droplets in basic aqueous solution (with a pH indicator to make the motion more interesting) and a greasy anhydride as "fuel". Differing gradients of pH allow the drops to skim across the surface and move like cells.

I've noticed something similar while watching crystallization of an organic compound. The first crystals formed on top of the solution and as the crystals grew, they scooted across the surface, either from the impact of molecules being added to the crystal or from the temperature of the solution heating up (or cooling) on the side that was growing. (At a molecular level, are these two explanations really different?)

So while Hanczyc's oil droplets are fascinating to watch, they are a physical phenomenon and not a useful step in the direction of autocatalytic sets which could explain the origin of life. However, the article mentioned research by Jack Szostak at Harvard who is doing research on protocells focusing on the lipid portion so I'll look in to that next.