Origin of Life

life from non-life

• Abiogenesis

• Primordial Soup

• Biogenesis

life from life

• Abiogenesis

• Biogenesis

• Spontaneous Generation

early ocean on Earth full of organic molecules

• Chemical evolution

• Abiogenesis

• Primordial Soup

larger cells engulfed (ate) smaller cells, and they became the organelles.

• heterotroph

• autotroph

• endosymbiotic theory

Chemical reactions that eventually led to simple cells forming

• Biogenesis

• Primordial Soup

• Chemical evolution

This experiment was conducted by the scientists:

• Stanley Miller and Harold Urey

• Harold Urey and Albert Einstein

• Louis Pasteur and Francesco Redi

• James Watson and Francis Crick

Tags

NGSS.HS-PS1-2

Miller/Urey and other scientists have shown that:

•  Life on early Earth required material from space

• Cells survived in the primitive atmosphere

• Amino acids could be produced from inorganic molecules 

• Simple cells can be produced in a laboratory

The idea that Earth's early oceans had organic molecules that became the first life is called the...

• Primordial soup hypothesis

• Bubble hypothesis

• Miller-Urey Experiment

• Radioactive dating theory

The Miller-Urey experiment of 1953 was designed to test the hypothesis that lightning supplied the energy needed to turn atmospheric gases into organic molecules such as amino acids. Which of the following describes why the Miller-Urey theory is widely accepted today?

• Amino acids spontaneously form from molecules in the atmosphere today

• Organic molecules are present today in extremely high concentrations

• The process of synthesizing organic molecules from a mixture of gases has been successfully modeled in the laboratory

• No other alternative hypotheses have been introduced

Which question were the scientists trying to answer with this experiment?

• Where do cells come from?

• How did prokaryotes form cell membranes?

• How are biomolecules formed?

• What gave rise to the Eukaryotic cell?