Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 14: Evolutionary Game Theory III (joint SOE, BP)

BP 14.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 15:15–15:30, H44

Chemical Evolution in Simulating Experiments — •Eva Wollrab and Albrecht Ott — Biologische Experimentalphysik, Saarbrücken, Deutschland

In 1953 Stanley Miller and Harold Urey made a pioneering experiment, simulating possible primitive earth conditions. In a sealed apparatus they boiled water in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia and hydrogen circulating these compounds past an electric discharge during periods of the order of a week. The resulting samples contained several organic molecules among them also amino acids. In the following decades several experiments were made to test the spontaneous formation of the most important biomolecules under possible primitive earth conditions.

We have performed Miller's experiment. The resulting samples were analyzed by HPLC and mass spectroscopy. Our analysis performed following different run-times gives us information about the composition of the reaction products. It reveals an evolution of the emerging substances and their compositions towards increased complexity as well as a (universal?) distribution of molecular masses.

This is a first step in order to determine conditions, which ultimately allow for the birth of autocatalytic chemical cycles.