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...