Origin of Life

Stanley Miller and Harold Urey carried out experiments in the 1950s that were the first serious try to find out how life on earth began. They passed sparks through a combination of methane, ammonia, water vapor and hydrogen — a mixture similar to earth's original atmosphere. At the University of Chicago, they created amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Their reconstructed atmosphere was probably wrong, and the experiment had never been repeated with a more exact mixture

But everyone was wrong. After Miller left Chicago, he worked with Jeffrey Bada, a chemist from the USA, at the Scripps Institution. When Miller died in 2007, Bada received boxes full of his paraphernalia. He did not worry about them much for some time, but one day...

"It was just a stunning experience," Bada says. "All these little boxes full of equipment and vials from all Stanley's original experiments. It was an unbelievable collection of organic compounds and amino acids."

The new studies are potentially important because they are based on a more realistic picture of conditions on early earth. In particular, they suggest that life might have appeared not in a "warm little pool" but in the violent environment of volcanic eruptions. "We know that the early earth had few continents, but it had a lot of volcanoes, and they were hotter and more powerful than today. They would have been throwing hydrogen sulfide and other gases."

Volcanic plumes would also have initiated powerful discharges of lightning from the skies. And that is essentially what Miller's unpublished experiments showed. And when the scientists analyzed Miller's original samples they found a wide assortment of amino acids, including some that had never been made before. 

The big action now is how go from these simple molecules to self-replicating molecules. It's challenging science. It's just a matter of time before we get to know it.

By Michael Lemonick at www.time.com. Picture by UPI Photo / Landov