Talk:Miller–Urey experiment

message: (The first time precedes content item 1)
The article has a Reference #2 to a follow-up paper by Urey-Miller in 1959. The paper is available from the link given, but for discussion purposes, I have temporarily placed a copy here... delete the commas:
http,://,grandscheme,.org/,Urey-,Miller-,1959.pdf  (seven pages)
On its page 248, in the left column entitled 'Electric Discharges', they explicitly refer to the 1953 paper (Reference #1 here), and go on to say: "A more complete analysis of the products gave the results shown in Table 2."
Table 2 is the top middle column on page 249. Also, a list of the 20 (why does the article say 22?) amino acids needed for life are shown here:
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/Molbio/aatable.html
http://members.tripod.com/Diabetics_World/Amino_Acid_Details.htm
Four amino acids are immediately identifiable against the above list(s).
Is there anyone here technical to match up some of the other Table 2 items to amino acids?
I'm pretty sure the number of amino acids in the 1953 experiment that were identified by the 1959 "more complete analysis" by the original authors is 11. Here are two references for that:
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.php  (Miller: "Just turning on the spark in a basic pre-biotic experiment will yield 11 out of 20 amino acids.") [and I should think Miller would know]
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=461  ("Stanley Miller with his Nobel Laureate supervisor, Harold Urey, demonstrated that 13 of the 21 amino acids necessary for life could be made in a glass flask.") [11 is the conservative version of 13]
What do y'all think? My edit to make it '11 amino acids' was backed out by someone many months ago.
I think it's time to put it back in, with appropriate tweaks to the language of that paragraph. Anyone care to make the edit, now that we can see the "more complete analysis?"  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Double Think (talk • contribs) 06:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  #of Amino Acids (Fourth Time!) 

message: Several vials from one of Miller's early experiments has apparently been reanalized with modern equipment and found to have twenty two amino acids and five amines.
Johnson AP, Cleaves HJ, Dworkin JP, Glavin DP, Lazcano A, Bada JL (2008) The Miller Volcanic Spark Discharge Experiment. Science 322(5900):404.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/37729/title/Primordial_soup_lives_again
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/old_scientists_never_clean_out.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-10/iu-me101308.php  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.111.242 (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  #of Amino Acids *Other Experiments* 

message: This is due to the recent discovery of some additional amino acids in the original experiments. The obvious question to me is: "why were these vials not analyzed after the original experiment?". If anyone finds the answer to that question, please add it here or to the article? Thank you --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:08, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead specifies "re-analysis", it was done again with more sensitive instruments; which the article now does elaborate on. - RoyBoy 03:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

text: My error. They had been analysed before. Narayanese (talk) 17:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  why were some vials unanalysed ? 

message: This is quite a leap of scientific faith.  Is this article trying to claim that the Miller-Urey experiment achieved fusion or fission of other elements into carbon and hydrogen?  This experiment began with these elements in great abundance (in methane and carbon dioxide) and I don't recall that the stoichiometry ever indicated a sudden increase of either one.  At any rate, I've never heard anyone describe an inorganic compound such as water reacting with an organic compound such as methane as "inorganic synthesized into organic" or words to that effect.  Since organic compounds were present from the start, I think this wording is misleading.Hellasick (talk) 04:58, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it is merely saying that this experiment proves that basic compounds like water and methane, under certain conditions, form molecules well known to be biological in nature, such as amino acids. --Pstanton (talk) 09:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inorganic to Organic? 

message: Um, exscuse me, but this article still doesn't seem to show that the experiment failed. Mcoolister (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It didn't. Narayanese (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. It did. Mcoolister (talk) 17:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Science clearly thought it went alright... Narayanese (talk) 18:11, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I heard it didn't come out as he hoped. Like I said, I'll look into it. Mcoolister (talk) 19:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

text: There is a section called Earth's early atmosphere and it discusses the hypothesis. Variation of the experiment are being repeated. Ultimately, no one has a sample of Earth's early atmosphere but the fact remains his starting materials and even amino acids exist naturally therefore some chemical process created the amino acids. Vmelkon (talk) 13:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Conclusion

message: Maybe somebody could do an experiment like this; but instead of methane we use silane or germane etc. and see what comes out? --HawkFromHell (talk) 08:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Silane and germane are not so stable as CH4, and the only result should be theirs decomposition; another reason is that these elements are not able to form stable Si-Si or Ge-Ge bonds. May be, experiments with phosphine (PH3) instead methane are more interesting, but I am not sure. Krasss (talk) 20:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure if silane is stable in the presence of water. If it is, it would be interesting to try. Apparently, germane has been detected on Jupiter. Vmelkon (talk) 12:56, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Another idea for an experiment

message: The talk page is pretty long, and all threads look to be inactive, could someone who knows how archive this? --Pstanton (talk) 01:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive? 

message: Hi, just a stupid creationist here with a question.  The line that talks about optical isomers is confusing.  I'm not trying to dispute anything, but there is absolutely no indication of why the facts related are relevant.  As one who really dislikes bad arguments, throwing that out there without some sort of explination appears to be an attempt to pile up technical jargon to bolster an argument.  I'm sure that's not the case, but some people might see it that way.  Besides, an encyclopedia article should be clear about the relevance of all information included.  I even linked over to the related pages, but there isn't any help there either as to why their appearance is relevant to this experiment.  I'd really like to understand.  Any help?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.168.3.195 (talk) 21:46, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  optical isomers and racemic? 

message: A very bold statement: 'However, advances in science since the original experiment have shown that the conditions of the experiment do not match that of early Earth as originally proposed.[9]'
From the source:
'There has been a recent wave of skepticism concerning Miller's experiment because it is now believed that the early earth's atmosphere did not contain predominantly reductant molecules. Another objection is that this experiment required a tremendous amount of energy. While it is believed lightning storms were extremely common on the primitive Earth, they were not continuous as the Miller/Urey experiment portrayed. Thus it has been argued that while amino acids and other organic compounds may have been formed, they would not have been formed in the amounts which this experiment produced.'
This merely says that 'it is now believed that early Earth's atmosphere did not contain predominantly reductant molecules' and 'lighting storms [on early Earth] (..) were not continuous as the Miller/Urey experiment portrayed'.
I think 'advances in science (..) have shown' should be changed into '[after some] advances in science (...) it is now believed'.
--Shought (talk) 21:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  At the end of the day, speculation about primordial Earth conditions is still conjectural.  And even transient electrical discharges could have created enough amino acids for local biogenesis to occur, conceivably, given even local concentrations of the postulated materials (say, near a volcanic vent).  I think that the Miller Urey experiment stands on the basis it established ONE set of circumstances in which amino acids could be formed by the environment.  It has been the basis for much subsequent work in exobiology.loupgarous (talk) 13:30, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Conditions do not match that of early Earth...' 

message: I've cut a bit of quibbling from the lead that didn't appear in the article body and was about more recent interpretations of earth's early atmosphere (along with some ID stuff). The article is about the Miller-Urey experiment and its place in the history of science. Yes, including more recent scientific works and their relation to the experiment is a valid extension to the article. But long ref quotes in the lead section don't belong. And the ID "critique" is totally out of place. Vsmith (talk) 01:06, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear User:Vsmith, in this edit you removed a large amount of referenced information from the introduction of the article. I have moved the content from that paragraph to a new section in the article. I hope this helps. Thanks, AnupamTalk 01:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Twas better in the body ... however, the intelligent design stuff is rather irrelevant coatracking and I've removed it again. Also the "When the Stanley Miller tested ..." bit as absurdly worded and please - we don't quote great globs from google books in a reference as for one thing it makes editing very difficult. Vsmith (talk) 02:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Also, stating "However, in current times..." and then supporting that with an obsure 1977 book seems rather odd. Also the other reference used is a 1977 college textbook, surely we can do better. The ref to Science paper by Johnson et al is already used in the section "Recent related studies" further down in the article. So, the section suffers from redundancy and outdated/obscure refs. Vsmith (talk) 03:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Much of the other sections in the article are not referenced, including the "panspermia hypothesis" assertion. I will work on the article when I am able to later. Only one sentence discussed the views of ID, which should be mentioned, since that is a view held by a significant group of people. If you object to certain references, please add the "verify" tag instead rather than removing the material. I will discuss and find more references in the future. For now I have eliminated some of the problems you have addressed, such as using the word "current," by naming the specific scientists. I would appreciate your cooperation. Thanks, AnupamTalk 04:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed from lead 

message: Why no discussion of chirality? The enantiomeric mixture of the resulting chemicals is a crucial point.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.83.82.224 (talk) 21:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Chirality is irrelevant to the consideration of prebiotic conditions.  It only becomes important when an existing organism has to metabolize an amino acid whose chirality is incompatible with its cells' ribosomal structure and thus metabolically unusable or even toxic. That is not a consideration in the environment Miller and Urey postulated.loupgarous (talk) 13:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I believe it's got something to do with whether amino acids were delivered from space c.f. carbonaceous chondrites. Kortoso (talk) 23:29, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Chirality

message: An interesting new analysis might warrant a mention:
*Article: Long-Neglected Experiment Gives New Clues to Origin of Life
*Analysis: Primordial synthesis of amines and amino acids in a 1958 Miller H2S-rich spark discharge experiment
Archived samples from a 1958 Stanley Miller electric discharge experiment were discovered and analyzed. Johnuniq (talk) 07:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I will add these to "Related links". Kortoso (talk) 20:26, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  New analysis of a 1958 experiment 

message: One link from the External Links sections is dead: A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions by Stanley L. Miller, Science, v.117, May 15, 1953  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.27.196.98 (talk) 17:05, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead links 

message: I don't know how to reply to the Main page, so here goes. The "citation needed" comment asks: "is it not clear [if he ever published any of these results in the primary scientific literature] because academics have researched this and somehow can't tell, or is it just not clear to the Wikipedia contributor from reading only the NYT article?" 
The NY Times article cited mentions MacNevin's OTHER early work with no details. The contributor (me), searched the literature indexes (Chemical Abstracts, etc.), contacted several people at the OSU chemistry department, OSU librarians and OSU archivists to try to track down any other publications (peer reviewed journal articles, theses, etc.) or unpublished archived materials (personal papers, letters, rejected manuscripts, etc.) by MacNevin or his students and they found none. I don't think they searched very hard, but they did some searches. I suppose you can change the Main article to: "There are no papers published by MacNevin describing this other work indexed in Chemical Abstracts." AdderUser (talk) 13:00, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed: Wm MacNevin 

message: The original journal report seems to be a single author paper: Miller, S. L. "Production of Amino Acids under possible Primitive Earth Conditions", Science v117(3046), pp 529-529, 1953.
That makes it the Miller experiment, not the Miller-Urey experiment. Urey chose not to be a coauthor, and the scientific community should accept that choice.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.206.15.181 (talk) 03:25, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Miller was his grad student, say no more. Kortoso (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Miller, not Miller-Urey, experiment

message: Citation number 20's URL is obsolete, however there is a new URL:
http://www.micro.siu.edu/micr425/14.pdf
I'm not sure if it is the same, though.
24.13.209.132 (talk) 01:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation number 20

message: ...is a dead link.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.92.174.105 (talk) 20:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation #22 

message: Hi RGA1980,
I pulled down both Trail et al.'s "The oxidation state of Hadean magmas and implications for early Earth’s atmosphere" as well as the companion "Earth science: Redox state of early magmas" in Nature 480:7375 (Dec 1 2011).  I don't see Miller-Urey mentioned anywhere.  While this work may have some bearing on it I think you'll be better served by finding a cite that makes the connection explicitly.  Thanks.  Garamond Lethe (talk) 07:44, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:RGA1980|RGA1980]] and Trail's Nature Paper 

message: I found this section hard to understand. Consider the sentence:
"In fact, in order to generate aromatic amino acids under primitive earth conditions it is necessary to use less hydrogen-rich gaseous mixtures."
On my first reading I thought this meant: there has to be hydrogen in the gas for amino acids to successfully form (i.e. high hydrogen content makes the atmosphere more inhospitable to amino acids). The next paragraph suggested I misunderstood, as it suggested high hydrogen content makes the atmosphere more hospitable - so I guess the hydrogen content clause isn't about "in order to generate", but rather about "under primitive earth conditions", that they believed the early atmosphere was lower in hydrogen (and thus less hospitable).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hugovdm (talk • contribs) 09:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarity of "Earth's early atmosphere" section 

message: This article, arguably more so than any other biology article, needs a criticism section. This experiment has been debunked several times(By REAL scientists, not creationists).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.199.53.35 (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean by debunked? When someone says debunked, it makes me think the experiment doesn't actually work. Also, you should provide reference articles. Vmelkon (talk) 22:17, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

text: Well i am also in complete support of Criticism section. A lot of misinformation in this article BurstPower (talk) 17:48, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism?  

message: The intro contains the following ...
Specifically, the experiment tested Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors
This is clearly wrong since organics cannot come from inorganics (assuming that by 'organic' we mean carbon containing molecules). I propose changing this sentence to ...
Specifically, the experiment tested Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized more complex organic compounds from simpler organic precursors Leor klier (talk) 23:20, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organic / Inorganic 

message: “As of the date of the publishing of the previous statements, no spontaneous generation has demonstrated the smallest lifeform can be produced in this manner. The smallest genome is 112,000 base pairs. The same forces making these amino acids would destroy any genome. The association of this with abiogenesis has yet to be proven.”
The purpose of the Miller/Urey-Experiment is for discovering whether, under plausible conditions, one can created molecules life used under plausible prebiotic conditions.  I Personally doubt that any sane scientist expects that something will crawl out of the reactionvessel.  The creatards keep adding the above paragraph.
The long process leading from generation of molecules life uses to life is chemical evolution.  Miller/Urey-Experiment and chemical evolution together, with a few other fields go under the banner of abiogenesis.  The creatards need to stop vandalizing this article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.108.158 (talk) 03:23, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe this article needs a "Criticism" section where documented concerns may be aired. :-Kortoso (talk) 21:38, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creatards keep adding this nonsequitor: 

message: The section "chemistry of experiment" has two problems. First it is entirely unreferenced, so a reference should be added or the section removed. Second, it mentions the compound cyanoacetylene, leaving the impression that that compound was discovered in this experiment. That implication is challenged :ticket:2016052710021807 So we either need a strong reference supporting the claim we need some major editing. Even if the chemistry is that compound wasn't discovered in the experiment.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: About cyanoacetylene, see for example the next link. Citation from there: "Cyanoacetylene has been proposed as a prebiotic reagent for the formation of pyrimidine bases, nucleosides, and nucleotides (Sanchez and Orgel 1970; Powner et al. 2009)." Krasss (talk) 18:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chemistry of experiment 

message: Why is there a connection to a vaccuum pump? It is not mentioned in the text. The whole experiment took place at "ambient" pressure (well, ambient "du jour" for assumed prebiotic conditions). The electical discharge was high voltage, just like the lightning it simulated, so it didn't need low pressure. Very confused.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.175.140.117 (talk) 12:15, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting! The diagram from which it is supposedly derived has a gas inlet there, for the introduction of methane and ammonia. I can't see why it was changed to a vacuum pump.  Scolaire (talk) 12:29, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the vaccuum pump? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Maybe I'm missing something, but under "Chemistry of Experiment" CO2 is listed, but the article says the experiment consisted of H2O, CH4, NH3 and H2.  Where did the CO2 come from?  It needs explaining.
80.47.44.54 (talk) 17:14, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  CO2? 

message: The video in this Article is remarkably similar to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qNeGSJaQ9Q .  Should we give some credit to this famous science fiction author for her 1918 novel depicting the animation of matter with lightening? Charles Juvon (talk) 00:06, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is a reliable source making this connection, then yes. Otherwise no. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 03:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: After doing some searches, I think we can say: "Media and pundits have made a connection between Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and the Miller-Urey experiment, with cartoons depicting Frankenstein crawling out of a test tube."  This says more about how people viewed the experiment in the 1950's than any precedent in the scientist's thinking.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles Juvon (talk • contribs) 19:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we cannot, since, as you have already been told, we do not have a reliable source for that. Also, it's 1818, not 1918. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:18, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some Credit to Mary Shelley? 

message: It says, "One-step reactions among the mixture components can produce hydrogen cyanide (HCN), formaldehyde (CH2O), and other active intermediate compounds (acetylene, cyanoacetylene, etc.):
CO2 → CO + [O] (atomic oxygen)"
But where does the carbon dioxide come from? There has been no mention of carbon dioxide up to this point. The Experiment section states that the chemicals placed in the flask are water, hydrogen, methane, and ammonia. H2O, H2, CH4, and NH3, respectively. No mention of CO2 in that section. Polar Apposite (talk) 13:55, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Carbon dioxide.

message: the picture describing the " enantiomeric excess" ratio has at its bottom a writing (in pic format). This ends in something like L-version/D-version >0. Probably a mistake, since the division of two numbers should not be 0 in any circumstances. I suppose the picture's author wanted to say that the ratio is not =1, that is the two antinomers will not be in an equal ratio. Perhaps, if theres an editor more versed in how can you correct a picture, this mistake could be amended.
If this is not a mistake, then probably some explanation is due in the description of the picture in order to avoid misunderstanding. 
Sorry, just realized that my whole previous comment was unwarranted. 
the difficult to follow equation at the bottom of the picture just means that in the whole mixture the difference between the constituting two compounds will be more than zero, eg: the L and the D enantinomers will not be of exactly the same amount. 
Anyway, no need to "correct" the equation. Though it is not very easy to follow, but there is no mistake.
62.92.48.67 (talk) 11:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  relevance to the origin of life - section's picture