. Aspects of the origin of life. Life; Biochemistry; Biochemistry; Biogenesis. 102 T. E. PAVLOVSKAYA AND A. G. PASYNSKII discharge, those which are thermodynamically capable of occurring spon- taneously will be favoured. Obviously, more favourable conditions for the reaction will be present in a mixture in which carbon monoxide is exchanged for hydrogen, and this, from geochemical considerations, would appear to have been a possible component of the primaeval atmosphere of the Earth, while not destroying its reducing character. From this point of view the formation of amino acids was facihtate
. Aspects of the origin of life. Life; Biochemistry; Biochemistry; Biogenesis. 102 T. E. PAVLOVSKAYA AND A. G. PASYNSKII discharge, those which are thermodynamically capable of occurring spon- taneously will be favoured. Obviously, more favourable conditions for the reaction will be present in a mixture in which carbon monoxide is exchanged for hydrogen, and this, from geochemical considerations, would appear to have been a possible component of the primaeval atmosphere of the Earth, while not destroying its reducing character. From this point of view the formation of amino acids was facihtated when the atmosphere was depleted of hydrogen and contained a certain amount of CO. In fact, in this case the formation of alanine, for example, could proceed in accordance with the overall equation: CH4+2CO + NH3 >CH3CH(NH2)COOH 5900 cal/mole. Fig. 3. Diagram of apparatus for the synthesis of amino acids in an electric discharge. In fact, a certain amount of CO was formed in Miller's apparatus when electric discharges were passed through mixtures of CH4 and HoO (1-10%), but the alteration in the composition of the starting mixture which this entailed had a somewhat damping effect on the reactions which were going on. We therefore tried Miller's experiments leaving hydrogen out of the mixture altogether and substituting CO. We carried out our experiments in an apparatus constructed in accordance with Miller's diagram (Fig. 3) [6]. At first we repeated Miller's experiments using a gaseous mixture of the same composition as that which Miller used and we were able fully to confirm his results, obtaining identical two-dimensional chromatograms. To supplement our test of the possibility of bacterial contami- nation, we carried out experiments lasting 80 hours, which were the same apart from the absence of electrical discharges, and obtained wholly negative results. It is obvious that when water is continually boiling and the gas is circulating in the electrical discharge, bacter
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