Primordial Soup: Interview with Stanley Miller

An anonymous reader writes "Stanley Miller's classic 'primordial soup' experiments showed that 13 of the 21 amino acids necessary for life could be made in a glass flask. For its fifty-year commemoration, Miller is interviewed today and reflects on what Carl Sagan called 'the single most significant step in convincing many scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos.'"

Comments

Primer Poste !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Primer Poste !!!!

Slashdot Sci-fi Theater Presents...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rabbit Pens: Part 1

by Watts Martin

The embarrassment he had felt at his own nakedness had dissolved in the first week; after a month he wasn't sure he remembered what clothes felt like. He had learned the rabbits' words for yes, no, good, bad, for food and water and, he thought, cage, but no effort had been made to formally train him.

Judging by the way most passerby lost interest in him when they saw the numbers on the glass, his asking price was indeed high; after that month, several of the humans he'd been brought in with had already sold. What made him valuable? His exotic appearance, likely. His spirit. The wider range of funny noises he could make, even.

Allin's pride did demand a daily routine, as much as he could manage one--enough of one to keep him sane. He waited until night to perform bodily functions, defecating only in mornings, shortly before the cages were cleaned for the store's opening. Most of the time he made the meat and bread into a sandwich. He passed most of his time watching the rabbits who walked past the storefront and imagining stories about them: what their home lives might be like, their shrewish wives or boorish husbands. Mentally, it brought them down to his level, or perhaps lower; at the end of that first month he had successfully moved his feelings toward them to a humorous contempt.

Allin began to wonder why he bothered with any pretense of civilization, such as waiting until night to perform bodily functions. But part of him demanded that he do so--not out of modesty, or a now-useless notion of dignity, but as a last, slippery grip on normalcy.

With no apparent chance of escape from the shop, chances for freedom could only come after his purchase. Could he hope for a careless master, or even a good one? One he might reason with?

A former lover had gotten into fascinating, if fruitless, discussions with him on morality; here was a situation to put her ideas to the test. Were "right" and "wrong" subjective? She believed so. He'd argued, though. Never had he heard of a culture that shared no moral absolutes with others. But what about slavers? A "good" slaveholder might simply never beat their slaves without good reason. They would be wrong by Allin's own standards--but in their culture, perfectly moral. How could he depend on appealing to an owner's morality?

Re:Carl Sagan was missing Billions and Billions of

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. I dont need to post now.

Re:where ?

[spiny]

>YES we have soul and I cant prove it as much as you cant prove the opposite.

so that makes it true then?

a pretty weak argument if you ask me.

by the way, i am God, i can't prove it, but neither can you disprove it.

awaiting the -1 flamebait,

i thankyou.

Re:Article Text

[Anonymous Coward]

For chrissake, could people *PLEASE* stop quoting the entire article in comments? And for that matter, could you please stop modding them up? There's a reason hyperlinks were invented.

The only (only!) justification I can think of is when the page quoted is served off of PotatoComputer.net and there's a strong chance the site will be Slashdotted. Otherwise it's just annoying and redundant.

(Deep breath.)

Thank you, and have a nice day!

Re:I tried this experiment in high school...sort o

[dogfart]

I had to use a chemical...damn, don't remember what it was, but it turned purple in the presence of amino acids and is used to detect fingerprints on paper.

Ninhydrin. Cool stuff. Completely colorless but turns bright purple in the presence of amino acids. A great prank was leaving trace amounts on someone's pen or something...

No surprise you got a high mark. Experiments that fail are very important in science, and understanding why they may have failed helps inform further research. The important thing about science is explaining why, not "winning the lottery"