of course atmosphere etc. all has to be there.

The first glaring problem with Miller's pre-biotic earth chemistry is that his "origin of life" experiments all made use of oxygen-free environments: Organic compounds can NOT originate naturally in the presence of oxygen. duh.

They didn't make RNA in the lab from non-organic material. They didn't even make RNA from non-complex organic material. They DID recreate self-replicating RNA with pre-existing enzymes that contained many nucleotides. This is very important and proof that they are seemingly on the right track, but still not quite to the point of making a roadmap from the 'primordial ooze' to 'life'.

Without Oxygen there is no Ozone. Without Ozone there is nothing shielding the Earth from the Sun's Ultraviolet radiation. And in the formation of life, UV radiation is very baaad.

yes, life was inevitable, was the answer I sermised

posted by: justdukky
I'm not a biochemist or exobiologist and I'm relatively unfamiliar with the chemical composition of planet earth at the time organic compunds were allegedly forming. That said, however, it is my understanding that at that point in time, most of earth's oxygen was locked in compounds like water, carbon mono & dioxides, etc. There would have been little or no atmospheric oxygen (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm unsure of the atmospheric composition of the time, but assume it was mostly the result of volcanic gases like water vapor (that condensed to water), carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid, and a sprinkling of a few other compounds like hydrochloric acid. I'm told there was a lot of nitrogen, but virtually no free atmospheric oxygen at the time, so I don't see its presence being a problem with the creation of organic compounds.

Since life originated in the ocean, why would UV radiation have destroyed it? Wasn't the water itself a sufficient shield before the processes of life created the ozone layer?

"Forgotten Experiment May Explain Origins of Life"
Originally considered a dud, an old volcano-in-a-bottle experiment designed to mimic conditions that may have brewed the components of life might have been right on target.

After reanalyzing the results of unpublished research conducted by Stanley Miller in 1953, chemists realized that his experiment had actually produced a wealth of amino acids — the protein foundation of life.

Miller is famed for the results of experiments on amino acid formation in a jar filled with methane, hydrogen and ammonia — his version of the primordial soup. However, his estimates of atmospheric composition were eventually considered inaccurate. The experiment became regarded as a general rather than useful example of how the first organic molecules may have assembled.

But the latest results, derived from samples found in an old box by one of Miller’s former graduate students, come from a device that mimicked volcanic conditions now believed to have existed three billion years ago. The findings suggest that amino acids could have formed when lightning struck pools of gas on the flanks of volcanoes, and are a fitting coda for the late father of prebiotic chemistry.

"What’s amazing is that he did it," said study co-author Jeffrey Bada, a Scripps Institute of Oceanography biochemist and Miller’s former student. "All I did is have access to his extracts."


Bada stumbled across the original experiment by accident when a colleague of Miller’s mentioned having seen a box of experimental samples in Miller’s office. Bada, who inherited Miller’s scientific possessions after his death in 2007, found the box —
literally labeled "1953-1954 experiments" — in his own office.

Inside it were samples taken by Miller from a device that spewed a concentrated stream of primordial gases over an electrical spark. It was a high-powered variation on the steady-steam apparatus that earned him fame — but unlike that device, it appeared to have produced few amino acids, and was unmentioned in his landmark 1953 Science study, "A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions."

But Miller didn’t have access to high-performance liquid chromatography, which lets chemists break down and classify samples with once-unthinkable levels of precision. And when Bada’s team reanalyzed the disregarded samples, they found no fewer than 22 amino acids, several of which were never seen by Miller in a lifetime of primordial modeling.

Perhaps amino acids first formed when the gases in Miller’s device accumulated around active volcanoes, said Bada. "Instead of having global synthesis of organic molecules, you had a lot of little localized factories in the form of these volcanic islands," he said.

"The amino acid precursors formed in a plume and concentrated along tidal shores. They settled in the water, underwent further reactions there, and as they washed along the shore, became concentrated and underwent further polymerization events," explained Indiana University biochemist Adam Johnson, a co-author of the study. "And lightning" — the final catalyst in the equation — "tends to be extremely common with volcanic eruptions."

Luke Leman, a Scripps Institute biochemist who was not involved in the study, published today in Science, agreed.

"These findings add to a growing body of literature suggesting that areas near volcanoes could have been hotspots of organic chemistry on early Earth," he said.

Leman continued, "These findings will likely inspire a next generation of prebiotic chemists, much as Miller’s original experimental results have inspired the field for more than fifty years."

posted by: Sign11
The first glaring problem with Miller's pre-biotic earth chemistry is that his "origin of life" experiments all made use of oxygen-free environments: Organic compounds can NOT originate naturally in the presence of oxygen. duh.

No water and no oxygen? Does this sound like anything resembling the natural conditions existing in the primordial soup prior to life on earth?

When a magazine like "Wired" announces "Life’s First Spark Re-Created in the Laboratory", the Materialists are quick to parrot the headline without bothering to read the peer-reviewed implications of the experiments such as this one by Dr. Shapiro:

that do not resemble the natural chemistry on the earth, past or present.

If oxygen destroys the RNA compounds produced in the Miller experiments, how do you account for the theory that life evolved from the oceans, which contain oxygen?

So what are you saying?

posted by: Verzen
Ohh I know this I know this! Only pure oxygen has a truly negative effect on life. Water however, offers the most chemical reactions in a neutral state than any other liquid and it has a Ph level of 7 which makes it ideal for forming life through abiogenesis... I learned that in bio 101...

Recent biological and interplanetary studies seem to favor an early oxidized atmosphere rich in CO2 and possibly containing free molecular oxygen.

Cells also contain water within them to offer the most chemical reaction possible and cells are living. Water also has oxygen in it, but yet it doesn't seem to have a negative effect on life at all *since cells need it*.. In fact, it has a positive effect because it can cause the process of chemical reactions, which we are all a product of, to form more quickly. That is why water is a necessity for life to form. Without water, there is no life.

Edit: Where is my million dollars?

which refutes Miller's reductionist theory.

If there's enough free oxygen in the atmosphere to rust the rocks...

"Among the MOST LETHAL environmental agents I discovered for DNA — ...was WATER. Water does nasty things to DNA."
Robert Shapiro, professor emeritus of chemistry and senior research scientist at New York University.