Classic Experiments that

Lead to the Discovery of

First Life
 About 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth
began to exist. The existence of life, as
believed by many scientists, started from
the moment the Earth’s environment
became stable to support life. Several
theories were proposed to explain life’s
origin. One of these theories is the
primordial soup theory proposed by
Alexander Oparin and John Haldane.
• Several scientists conducted different
experiments that modeled conditions
which may have enabled the first life
forms to evolve. Among these
experiments are the Electrical
Discharge Experiment, Thermal
Synthesis, and The Protocell
Experiment.
Electrical Discharge Experiment

• Stanley Miller and Harold Urey verified the

primordial soup theory by simulating the
formation of organic molecules on the
early Earth. They confined methane,
ammonia, water, and hydrogen in a closed
system and applied continuous electrical
sparks to trigger the formation of the
building blocks of life.
 Electrical Discharge Experiment

• After a day, they observed a change of

color in the solution. After a week, the
solution was tested, and they found out
that several amino acids were
produced. The purpose of this
experiment was not to try and produce
amino acids, rather, its purpose was to
explore the conditions of the early Earth
and what the naturally occurring results
would be.
Electrical Discharge Experiment
 Thermal Synthesis

• Sidney Fox demonstrated in his

experiment the origin of life using a
specific mixture of pure, dry amino
acids. In his experiment, after heating
the mixture, an aqueous solution was
formed and cooled into microscopic
globules called protenoid microspheres.
 Thermal Synthesis

• The globules looked like coccoid

bacteria and seemed to be budding,
which is a form of reproduction in some
microorganisms. He claimed that the
protenoid microspheres constituted
protocells – almost true cells, and
multiplied through division like true
cells. He believed that these cells were
the link between the primordial
environment and the true living cells.
 The Protocell Experiment

• Jack Szostak contemplated on how early

life forms formed in a primordial chemical
environment. He then thought that the
simplest possible living cells or protocells
just required two components to be
formed: a nucleic acid genome to transmit
the genetic information and a lipid sac
which encapsulated the genome and let
itself grow and divide.
 The Protocell Experiment

• Szostak built lipid sacs made in fatty acids

and a replicase – an RNA molecule that
catalyzes its own replication, in the test
tube. He found out that lipid sacs with
more RNA grew faster. He suggested that
such test tube evolution was possible. The
results suggested that the early forms of
life with just a single gene, an RNA gene,
could have undergone a Darwinian
evolution.