The glass jar was the catalyst for the famous Miller-Urey experiment on the origin of life on Earth, a discovery that validates the results.
In 1952, two chemists, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, left creationists without arguments. Many people thought that the chemistry of living things was too complex to have arisen by chance and that, consequently, a supernatural intelligence had directed the process. This is supported by intelligent design theory, which denies the theory of evolution.
Miller and Urey mixed water, hydrogen, ammonia and methane in a closed glass container. These were the components of Earth’s primitive atmosphere about 4 billion years ago. They heated the container and subjected it to electrical sparks to simulate lightning. After a week, the contents of the matraz were no longer transparent, but a turbid reddish color, and there was sediment at the bottom.
The experiment was replicated over and over again with the same results: from water and gases, electrical discharges form precursors of proteins and amino acids, the basic molecules that make up DNA and all living things.
But what researchers had never considered was the container used in the experiment had any effect on the result. This was the question that was asked the team of researchers led by Ernesto Di Mauro, from the Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology in Rome.
The vase was the catalyst
Di Mauro and his team repeated the experiment with the same type of borosilicate glass container used in the original experiment, and they also repeated the study with a container made of Teflon. In a third repetition of the experiment, they added glass chips to the mixture in the Teflon container.
The team found that reactions produced in the presence of glass would generate more complex molecules because glass contains silicates. Silicates can dissolve and be reabsorbed on the surface of a mixture and thus affect the type of reactions that take place, that is, they act as catalysts.
In contrast, Teflon, which was not widely used in the 1950s when Miller and Urey conducted their experiment, is chemically inert and does not have this effect.
“Glass is like rock on Earth: it catalyzes the reaction”, Di Mauro.
Di Mauro’s team discovered that the crystal contained the most diverse mix of complex organic products. Meanwhile, the Teflon beaker with glass pieces produced less complex compounds, probably because the glass pieces had a smaller combined surface area than the glass beaker itself. The smallest amount of complex compounds appeared when the experiment was carried out in a glassless Teflon beaker.
These results, far from invalidating Miller’s experience, add new supporting evidence. More than 90% of the Earth’s crust is made up of silicates, and they are also common on planets like Mars, where they may also have helped to catalyze reactions that could be important for the origin of life. Rocks, like glass, were essential as catalysts in the origin of life on Earth.
REFERENCES
The role of borosilicate glass in the Miller-Urey experiment