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Prebiotic Soup: Revisiting the Miller ExperimentIsn't life wonderful? sang Alma Cogan and Les Howard in their almost forgotten 1953 hit. That same year, Stanley L. Miller raised the hopes of understanding the origin of life when on 15 May, Science published his paper on the synthesis of amino acids under conditions that simulated primitive Earth's atmosphere. Miller had applied an electric discharge to a mixture of CH4, NH3, H2O, and H2 - believed at the time to be the atmospheric composition of early Earth. Surprisingly, the products were not a random mixture of organic molecules. but rather a relatively small number of biochemically significant compounds such as amino acids, hydroxy acids, and urea. With the publication of these dramatic results, the modern era in the study of the origin of life began.
Document ID
20050139769
Acquisition Source
Headquarters
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Bada, Jeffrey L.
(Scripps Institution of Oceanography La Jolla, CA, United States)
Lazcano, Antonio
(Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Mexico City, Mexico)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
May 2, 2003
Publication Information
Publication: Science
Volume: 300
Subject Category
Exobiology
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG5-12849
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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