Who says it is "dead" - perhaps "dormant" is a better term since it mey be merely (temporarily ??) lacking the 'tools' to 'live.' After all, we can transpose genes from one organism to another. It is not out of the realm of possiblility, were we to find a complete strand of dinosaur DNA that we might bring dinosaurs back to life ... ???
As to the first part of how the first formed "alive" - that is the mystery, perhaps miracle if you wish, although I think it is just the possibility that there can be such a thing as DNA the underlying miracle.
Thats what Dr. FrankenSteyn(ominous organ chord) thought..
What I say is road kill will never become "roundish" again.. but will remain flatt..
I continue to embrace the Shannon model which I might point out is also compatible with this speculation.
And Wimmer made the point by bootstrapping the polio virus in the lab. But to do it, it started with the message itself - and then provided a cell-free juice whereupon the virus became active - or in the Shannon model, successfully communicating as "noise" in the channel.
The Miller/Urey experiments lacked the insight of the information (successful communications) - and the message.
Well, of course that was the premise of Jurassic Park.... Evidently you're not the only person who thinks this is possible.
Probably we could more easily find a complete strand of DNA from a recently deceased person. As far as I know, nobody has yet tried to use it to bring that person "back to life."