Early thoughts on life

People use to believe in

spontaneous generation.
Spontaneous Generation:
nonliving things producing life.

Francesco Redi
A scientist who did not
believe in spontaneous
generation.
So, he designed an
experiment to disprove
spontaneous generation.

Question: Can a dead or nonliving

thing produce life?

 QUESTION: Can a dead (or

nonliving) thing produce life?
EXPERIMENT: Redi put some raw
meat in an open jar and some raw
meat in a closed jar. If spontaneous
generation was true, maggots and
flies would have grown in the closed
jar and the open jar
RESULTS: Maggots and flies were
only found in the meat in the open
jar!

Louis Pastures Experiment (pg.381)

QUESTION: Can nonliving things
produce life?
EXPERIMENT:
RESULTS:
CONCLUSION:

Pastures Experiment
QUESTION: Can nonliving air produce
life?
EXPERIMENT: Set up flasks with clean
nutrient broth. A tube was set up so
that air could get in but tiny
organisms could not.
RESULTS: Nothing grew in the
nutrient broth
CONCLUSION: Life cannot come from
nonliving things (like air).

New Theory of Life=

Biogenesis: all living
organisms come from
other living organisms

Primordial Soup Hypothesis

Early earth did not have any
oxygen!
The atmosphere had mostly water
vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen,
methane and ammonia gas

 If lightning
strikes, would
it have enough
energy to
cause the
different gases
to react and
create organic
molecules?

 Then, if the organic molecules fell

into the oceans in the rain, could
the soup of organic compounds
eventually come together to make
life?

Miller and Ureys

experiment
Miller and Urey tried to simulate the
conditions of early earth to see if
they could make organic molecules.
What do they need?
Early Atmosphere
Lightning
Rain
Ocean

What did they use to simulate

pg. 382

Early AtmosphereLightningRainOcean-

Miller and Ureys

experiment

Atmosphere-heated a
mixture of the gases -water
vapor, carbon dioxide,
nitrogen, methane and
ammonia.
Lightning: electric current
Rain: cooled temperature
to condense gas to a liquid
Ocean: Collected the liquid
What did they find in the
collected liquid????

Miller and Ureys

experiment
It worked!
THEY FOUND
ORGANIC
COMPOUNDS!!
Amino acids
Sugars

Evidence to
support the
primordial soup
hypothesis!

Can these organic molecules come

together to form macromolecules?
Yes! When heated in a
lab, amino acids will link
together to make small
proteins.
These amino acid chains
can then bunch together
to make a protocell.
Protocells are not alive
but show early
characteristics of life.

Evolution of Cells pg.383384

Label your five flaps1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

First Cells
Archaebacteria
Photosynthetic Prokaryotes
Aerobic Prokaryotes
Eukaryotes

In each flab describe the type of cell.

.Prokaryotic or Eukaryotic?
.Autotroph or Heterotroph?
.Aerobic or Anaerobic?

The First Cells

Heterotrophs- ate the
organic molecules
produced by
primordial soup
hypothesis!
No oxygen- they had
to be anaerobic
Prokaryotic

Archaebacteria
live in harsh
conditions.
Prokaryotic
Anaerobic
Heterotrophs
or Autotrophs

Photosynthetic Prokaryotes
Example:
Cyanobacteria that
contain pigments!
Prokaryotic
Anaerobic
Photosynthetic
**Start pumping
oxygen into the
atmosphere!

Aerobic Prokaryotes

small unicellular organisms.

Prokaryotic
Aerobic
Could be autotrophs or heterotrophs

Eukaryotes
Larger, complex, and have
organelles.
Eukaryotic
Aerobic
Autotrophs or
Heterotrophs

Endosymbiosis: How did we get

the mitochondria and chloroplast?
1: Large cell and small aerobic
bacteria or photosynthetic
bacteria are separate
Photosynthetic or Aerobic
Bacteria!!

2: Large cell surrounds the

smaller cell (engulfs it)
Endocytosis!!! (active transport)

3: The small bacteria lives inside

the larger cell (symbiotic
relationship)
Mutualism- both benefit!!!

4: Over time the small bacteria