James Brody
October 23rd, 2008, 04:05 PM
Stanley Miller applied sparks to a primordial soup" and produced five amino acids...or so he thought.
JimB
From Chemical & Engineering News: Oct. 20, 2008, p. 12
"PREBIOTIC CHEMISTRY
"Origin-Of-Life Chemistry Revisited
"Reanalysis of famous spark-discharge experiments reveals a richer collection of amino acids were formed
Steven K Ritter
"In the quest to understand how life on Earth became possible, Stanley L. Miller conducted a set of "primordial soup" experiments in the early 1950s to synthesize amino acids, the basic building blocks of peptides, proteins, and nucleic acids. The famous experiments, part of his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago, mimicked possible stormy atmospheric conditions on ancient Earth.... Jeffrey L. Bada of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Antonio Lazcano of the National Autonomous University of Mexico uncovered some of Miller's original samples and reanalyzed them.... Miller identified five amino acids and detected others in his reported experiments. But with modern liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques at their disposal, Bada and coworkers identified 14 amino acids and five amines in those samples and a richer collection of 22 amino acids and the five amines from the unpublished volcanic experiments."
More at http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i42/8642notw4.html
JimB
From Chemical & Engineering News: Oct. 20, 2008, p. 12
"PREBIOTIC CHEMISTRY
"Origin-Of-Life Chemistry Revisited
"Reanalysis of famous spark-discharge experiments reveals a richer collection of amino acids were formed
Steven K Ritter
"In the quest to understand how life on Earth became possible, Stanley L. Miller conducted a set of "primordial soup" experiments in the early 1950s to synthesize amino acids, the basic building blocks of peptides, proteins, and nucleic acids. The famous experiments, part of his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago, mimicked possible stormy atmospheric conditions on ancient Earth.... Jeffrey L. Bada of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Antonio Lazcano of the National Autonomous University of Mexico uncovered some of Miller's original samples and reanalyzed them.... Miller identified five amino acids and detected others in his reported experiments. But with modern liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques at their disposal, Bada and coworkers identified 14 amino acids and five amines in those samples and a richer collection of 22 amino acids and the five amines from the unpublished volcanic experiments."
More at http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i42/8642notw4.html