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From Old Vials, New Hints on Origin of Life
The New York Times ^ | October 16, 2008 | KENNETH CHANG

Posted on 10/17/2008 7:44:28 AM PDT by Soliton

A classic experiment exploring the origin of life has, more than a half-century later, yielded new results.

The original samples used by Stanley Miller to study the origins of life. In 1953, Stanley L. Miller, then a graduate student of Harold C. Urey at the University of Chicago, put ammonia, methane and hydrogen — the gases believed to be in early Earth’s atmosphere — along with water in a sealed flask and applied electrical sparks to simulate the effects of lightning. A week later, amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, were generated out of the simple molecules.

Enshrined in high school textbooks, the Miller-Urey experiment raised expectations that scientists could unravel the origins of life with simple chemistry experiments.

The excitement has long since subsided. The amino acids never grew into the more complex proteins. Scientists now think the composition of air on early Earth was much different from what Dr. Miller used, leading some to question whether the Miller-Urey experiment had any relevance to the still unsolved problem of the origin of life.

After Dr. Miller’s death in May last year, Dr. Jeffrey L. Bada of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, who had been one of Dr. Miller’s graduate students, discovered cardboard boxes containing hundreds of vials of dried residues collected from the experiments conducted in 1953 and 1954.

Consulting Dr. Miller’s notebooks, Dr. Bada discovered that Dr. Miller had constructed two variations of the original apparatus. One simply used a different spark generator. The second injected steam onto the sparks.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: abiogenesis; biogenesis; earlyearth; evolution; millerurey; originoflife; scientism
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To: Soliton

I never said you wrote the article...geeez what’s in your cornflakes?

Please...a peer reviewed journal?

Well that settles it, an article in a peer reviewed journal...and after all this time we FINALLY know...!!!

Gooood GRIEF!


21 posted on 10/17/2008 8:47:52 AM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: LeGrande

I don’t have one. I just thought of some people who would have found this article particularly interesting. Sorry I missed you!


22 posted on 10/17/2008 8:54:56 AM PDT by Soliton (> 100)
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To: tpanther

From post #8: “All you need is a means of assembling these into proteins.”

That’s like saying, “ Here are some metal ores and crude oil. All you need is a means of assembling them into computer parts.”


23 posted on 10/17/2008 8:55:00 AM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: tpanther
YOU presume to somehow know the environment that YOU state happened billions of years ago, which is impossible.

"That caught Dr. Bada’s attention, because the addition of steam seemed to replicate what might have existed in lagoons and tidal pools around volcanoes."--from the article

"Even with the existence of water and crust, the Earth was not the friendly place we now know. The planet would still have been quite hot, and the atmosphere would have consisted only of carbon dioxide, water, and volcanic gases. conditions."

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050505_early_earth.html

24 posted on 10/17/2008 9:04:44 AM PDT by Soliton (> 100)
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To: Soliton

The Bible doesn’t mention carbon dioxide, water, and volcanic gases. So it couldn’t have happened that way.


25 posted on 10/17/2008 9:07:25 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
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To: Soliton

YOU presume to somehow know the environment that YOU state happened billions of years ago, which is impossible.

“That caught Dr. Bada’s attention, because the addition of steam seemed to replicate what might have existed in lagoons and tidal pools around volcanoes.”—from the article

“Even with the existence of water and crust, the Earth was not the friendly place we now know. The planet would still have been quite hot, and the atmosphere would have consisted only of carbon dioxide, water, and volcanic gases. conditions.”

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050505_early_earth.html


But you do understand that no one was actually there right? I mean YOU understand this is theory?


26 posted on 10/17/2008 9:07:53 AM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther
But you do understand that no one was actually there right? I mean YOU understand this is theory?

Were you at Appomatox Court House? How do you know the Union won? I know because the science tells us that the early Earth was very volcanically active.

27 posted on 10/17/2008 9:16:56 AM PDT by Soliton (> 100)
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To: Soliton

SO YOU disagree with THEM?


28 posted on 10/17/2008 9:18:05 AM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: Soliton

Were you at Appomatox Court House? How do you know the Union won? I know because the science tells us that the early Earth was very volcanically active.


So this proves there was no intelligence behind it? HOW?


29 posted on 10/17/2008 9:19:11 AM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther
So this proves there was no intelligence behind it? HOW?

I'm pretty sure that I allowed that your God may have created the early Earth environment. It is not scientific to ask me to prove a negative. If you feel the need for proof, please supply some showing that the early earth environment was created by an intelligence.

30 posted on 10/17/2008 9:23:22 AM PDT by Soliton (> 100)
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To: tpanther

We don’t need intelligence, we have the TIDAL POOLS (Not a Cal. rock band). Now all we need is atmosphere!(please! no jokes about low lights and velvet drapes) Take a deep breath of that swampy methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. Can’t you just feel those proteins assembling?
I hope you brought a good book and a comfortable chair since this is going take a while, getting the proteins formed just right into the proper shape and handedness. And then to sort out the well formed proteins that have no function and figure out to preserve those that do.
But if your book turns out to be boring, watch while the atmosphere changes to a more oxygen rich one so you won’t have to keep holding your breath till mid chapter four.
Now that went so well you can take a coffee break because the rest of this is fairly boring till something crawls out of the slime just in time to make you lunch.

See how easy that was? And all on one page!


31 posted on 10/17/2008 9:30:04 AM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Toddsterpatriot

“And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.”

Brimstone= sulfur, Horses Breath= CO2, the Bible mentions lots of Water too (In all seriousness, this horses breat sure sounds like a volcano, doesn’t it?


32 posted on 10/17/2008 9:32:09 AM PDT by Soliton (> 100)
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To: Soliton

I'm pretty sure that I allowed that your God may have created the early Earth environment.


Good, it's called ID btw.


It is not scientific to ask me to prove a negative.


So why do you believe God's creation just popped up out of nothing with no intelligence behind it, with no purpose?

You sure do contradict yourself alot, demanding to say science can only be unintelligent without design!

WHY exactly IS that anyway?

33 posted on 10/17/2008 10:10:24 AM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther
Good, it's called ID btw.

Is ID falsifiable?

34 posted on 10/17/2008 10:32:20 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
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To: Toddsterpatriot
Inasmuch as I.D. makes any specific claims (the “irreducible complexity” of a flagellum, say) they are not only falsifiable, it has been falsified.

A flagellum can be reducible to a type II secretory system.

35 posted on 10/17/2008 12:06:08 PM PDT by allmendream (White Dog Democrat: A Democrat who will not vote for 0bama because he's black.)
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To: Toddsterpatriot

Good, it’s called ID btw.

Is ID falsifiable?


Let’s see, you mentioned God could make people via evolution from algae on another thread, so it seems to me you two need to get together with your ‘scientific defintions’ FIRST, and just finally admit it’s technically ID.


36 posted on 10/17/2008 12:48:01 PM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther

Is ID falsifiable?


37 posted on 10/17/2008 12:51:09 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
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To: Soliton
Please read the articles before criticizing them

That's an unreasonable request on FR.

38 posted on 10/17/2008 1:05:03 PM PDT by js1138
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To: Soliton
Please read the articles before criticizing them

That's an unreasonable request on FR.

39 posted on 10/17/2008 1:05:26 PM PDT by js1138
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To: js1138
You can say that again.

You can say that again.

40 posted on 10/17/2008 1:26:21 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
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