Describe S.L. Miller's experiment. Comment on the observations he made
and his contribution towards the origin of life on Earth.
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Answer:
Publication problem
Miller showed his results to Urey, who suggested immediate publication. Urey declined to be the co-author lest Miller would receive little or no credit. The manuscript with Miller as the sole author was submitted to Science on 10 February 1953. After weeks of silence, Urey inquired and wrote to the chair of the editorial board on 27 February on the lack of action in reviewing the manuscript. A month passed, but still there was no decision. On 10 March the infuriated Urey demanded the manuscript to be returned, and he himself submitted it to the Journal of the American Chemical Society on 13 March. By then, the editor of Science, apparently annoyed by Urey's insinuation, wrote directly to Miller that the manuscript was to be published. Miller accepted it and withdrew the manuscript from the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Follow-up
Miller continued his research until his death in 2007. As the knowledge on early atmosphere progressed, and techniques for chemical analyses advanced, he kept on refining the details and methods. He not only succeeded in synthesising more and more varieties of amino acids, he also produced a wide variety of inorganic and organic compounds essential for cellular construction and metabolism. In support, a number of independent researchers also confirmed the range of chemical syntheses. With the most recent revelation that, unlike the original Miller's experimental hypothesis of strongly reducing condition, the primitive atmosphere could be quite neutral containing other gases in different proportions,Miller's last works, posthumously published in 2008, still succeeded in synthesising an array of organic compounds using such condition.
Reassessment
In 1972 Miller and his collaborators repeated the 1953 experiment, but with a newly developed automatic chemical analysers, such as ion-exchange chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. They synthesised 33 amino acids, including 10 that are known to naturally occur in organisms. These included all of the primary alpha-amino acids found in the Murchison meteorite, which fell on Australia in 1969. Subsequent electric discharge experiment actually produced more variety of amino acids than that in the meteorite.
Explanation: