August 23, 2016 Tuesday
Today we met both Mr. Merchant and Inspector Deshmukh.
The lawyers of the evil DID indeed manage to scheme out a plan
to get his bail.
Bedtime Story
Assuming there was no contamination and sterility maintained, what Miller got was nothing short of astounding.
His paper chromatography revealed 5 amino acids:
Glycine
Alpha alanine
Beta alanine
These 3 were definite
The other two:
Aspartic acid
Alpha aminobutyric acid
Were less certain due to the spots being faint.
So let us analyze the chemistry of what happened:
Firstly, simple one step reactions can easily explain the formation of HCN hydrogen cyanide
HCHO formaldehyde
And other compounds such as:
Acetylene
Cyanoacetylene
For example:
CO2 = CO + O
CH4 + 2[O] = HCHO + H2O
CO + NH3 = HCN + H2O
CH4 + NH3 = HCN + 3H2
Now we have:
Formaldehyde
Ammonia and
Hydrogen cyanide
Now using the well known Strecker amino acid synthesis reactions we get:
HCHO + HCN + NH3 = NH2-CH2-CN + H2O
NH2-CH2-CN + 2H2O =
NH3 + NH2-CH2-COOH (glycine).
Note that all "equal to" marks need to be substituted with an arrow pointing towards the direction of the ongoing reaction.
I will not go into details of the synthesis of all the 5 amino acids, but I am sure you must have got the idea.
Of course, this was not the end.
Many others repeated this classical experiment to verify its veracity.
Not only did these experiments confirm this initial process of abiogenesis (natural process of life arising from non living matter), but also showed the synthesis of RNA and DNA nucleobases in such similar experiments.
After Miller died in 2007, scientists reanalyzed the sealed vials left by Miller from his classical experiments.
Using high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectroscopy (u know about it now), these scientists found more organic molecules than Miller had.
In 1996, in an interview this is what Stanley Miller had to say:
"Just turning on the spark in a basic pre-biotic experiment will yield 11 out of 20 amino acids."
Remember mon ami, from simplicity can arise complexity of such magnitude that it becomes hard or impossible for our evolved brains to assimilate its ambit.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Today we met both Mr. Merchant and Inspector Deshmukh.
The lawyers of the evil DID indeed manage to scheme out a plan
to get his bail.
Bedtime Story
Assuming there was no contamination and sterility maintained, what Miller got was nothing short of astounding.
His paper chromatography revealed 5 amino acids:
Glycine
Alpha alanine
Beta alanine
These 3 were definite
The other two:
Aspartic acid
Alpha aminobutyric acid
Were less certain due to the spots being faint.
So let us analyze the chemistry of what happened:
Firstly, simple one step reactions can easily explain the formation of HCN hydrogen cyanide
HCHO formaldehyde
And other compounds such as:
Acetylene
Cyanoacetylene
For example:
CO2 = CO + O
CH4 + 2[O] = HCHO + H2O
CO + NH3 = HCN + H2O
CH4 + NH3 = HCN + 3H2
Now we have:
Formaldehyde
Ammonia and
Hydrogen cyanide
Now using the well known Strecker amino acid synthesis reactions we get:
HCHO + HCN + NH3 = NH2-CH2-CN + H2O
NH2-CH2-CN + 2H2O =
NH3 + NH2-CH2-COOH (glycine).
Note that all "equal to" marks need to be substituted with an arrow pointing towards the direction of the ongoing reaction.
I will not go into details of the synthesis of all the 5 amino acids, but I am sure you must have got the idea.
Of course, this was not the end.
Many others repeated this classical experiment to verify its veracity.
Not only did these experiments confirm this initial process of abiogenesis (natural process of life arising from non living matter), but also showed the synthesis of RNA and DNA nucleobases in such similar experiments.
After Miller died in 2007, scientists reanalyzed the sealed vials left by Miller from his classical experiments.
Using high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectroscopy (u know about it now), these scientists found more organic molecules than Miller had.
In 1996, in an interview this is what Stanley Miller had to say:
"Just turning on the spark in a basic pre-biotic experiment will yield 11 out of 20 amino acids."
Remember mon ami, from simplicity can arise complexity of such magnitude that it becomes hard or impossible for our evolved brains to assimilate its ambit.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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