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The Miller–Urey experiment was a chemical experiment that simulated the conditions thought (1952) at the time to be present on the early Earth, and tested the chemical origin of life under those conditions. The experiment at the time supported Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that putative conditions on the primitive Earth favoured chemical reactions that synthesized more complex organic compounds from simpler inorganic precursors. Considered to be the classic experiment investigating abiogenesis, it was conducted in 1952 by Stanley Miller, with assistance from Harold Urey, at the University of Chicago and later the University of California, San Diego and published the following year.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).
Stanley Lloyd Miller was an American chemist who made landmark experiments in the origin of life by demonstrating that a wide range of vital organic compounds can be synthesized by fairly simple chemical processes from inorganic substances. In 1952 he carried out the Miller–Urey experiment, which showed that complex organic molecules could be synthesised from inorganic precursors. The experiment was widely reported, and provided support for the idea that the chemical evolution of the early Earth had led to the natural synthesis of chemical building blocks of life from inanimate inorganic molecules. He has been described as the "father of prebiotic chemistry".
Sir William Huggins was an English astronomer best known for his pioneering work in astronomical spectroscopy together with his wife Margaret Lindsay Huggins.
Alexander Ivanovich Oparin was a Soviet biochemist notable for his theories about the origin of life, and for his book The Origin of Life. He also studied the biochemistry of material processing by plants and enzyme reactions in plant cells. He showed that many food-production processes were based on biocatalysis and developed the foundations for industrial biochemistry in the USSR.
George Wetherill was the Director Emeritus, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC, USA.
William Walden Rubey was an American geologist.
Gerald Francis "Jerry" Joyce is a professor and researcher at Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the director of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. He is best known for his work on in vitro evolution, for the discovery of the first DNA enzyme (deoxyribozyme), for the development of the first self replicating RNA enzyme and more in general for his work on the origin of life.
Sallie Watson "Penny" Chisholm is a U.S. biological oceanographer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is an expert in the ecology and evolution of ocean microbes.
Hans J. Hofmann was a paleontologist, specializing in the study of Precambrian fossils using computer modelling and image analysis to quantify morphologic attributes.
Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal is an award presented by the National Academy of Sciences every five years to promote research and study in the fields of Precambrian and Cambrian life and history.
Andrew Herbert Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History and a Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania in 1951,Andrew Knoll graduated from Lehigh University with a bachelor of arts in 1973 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1977 for a dissertation entitled "Studies in Archean and Early Proterozoic Paleontology." Knoll taught at Oberlin College for five years before returning to Harvard as a professor in 1982. At Harvard, he serves in the departments of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Earth and Planetary Sciences.
J. Lawrence Smith Medal is awarded every three years by the National Academy of Sciences for investigations of meteoric bodies. The medal is in honor of its namesake, the American chemist and meteoriticist, J. Lawrence Smith.
The Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "to a scientist making new contributions to the physics of the Earth whose four to six lectures would prove a solid, timely, and useful addition to the knowledge and literature in the field." The prize was established by the physicist Arthur L. Day.
The Carnegie Institution of Washington, known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. The institution is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Steven M. Stanley is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is best known for his empirical research documenting the evolutionary process of punctuated equilibrium in the fossil record.
The Arctowski Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for studies in solar physics and solar-terrestrial relationships." Named in honor of Henryk Arctowski, it was first awarded in 1969.
The Mary Clark Thompson Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for most important service to geology and paleontology." Named after Mary Clark Thompson and first awarded in 1921, it is presented every three years together with a $15,000 prize.
James William Schopf is an American paleobiologist and professor of earth sciences at the University of California Los Angeles. He is also Director of the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life, and a member of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences, the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, and the Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA. He is most well known for his study of Precambrian prokaryotic life in Australia's Apex chert. Schopf has published extensively in the peer reviewed literature about the origins of life on Earth. He is the first to discover Precambrian microfossils in stromatolitic sediments of Australia (1965), South Africa (1966), Russia (1977), India (1978), and China (1984). He served as NASA's principal investigator of lunar samples during 1969–1974.
Roger Everett Summons is the Schlumberger Professor of Geobiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor of Geobiology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
References
- ↑ "NAS Award in Early Earth and Life Sciences". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 21 June 2015.