[verklingen]

i learned about that experiment this year in a bio foundations course. they basically set up a closed system with some soupy fluid that was supposed to mimic the early ocean. then they introduced a high energy spark, supposedly to mimic a lightning strike(lightning was common early in earths history because of the extreme volcanic activity) and then collected and analized the broth. it turned out that they produced a few amino acids completely randomly. pretty miraculous

yeah man that's based on the miller-urey experiment: Miller?Urey experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

since the same amino acids created by those experiments are found in meteorites (which do not experience lightning), their development might require far less input than we previously supposed. these guys think they found the answer in thermodynamics. it seems all that's needed is a large asteroid containing the amino acids' constituent molecules. it's speculated that the molecules are brought together purely through the thermodynamic physics at play within the asteroid.

science rules!