Could you make amino acids out of just gas & lightning?

Question

If you "zapped" a mixture of simple gases in a jar with a high voltage arc (to simulate lightning), what do you think the odds are you could make a molecule like a nucleotide, the basic building-block of life?

AuntB93 is right, of course, this has already been done. Isn't it interesting, I posted this question almost simultaneously in Chemistry and here in Religion & Spirituality...not sure I even have one answer in Chemistry yet, and there are over a dozen here!

Answer 1

Actually, I believe it has been done. Whether they were self-replicating nucleotides, I do not know. But it is true that electrical charges can cause molecules to combine in ways they do not otherwise do. Not surprising: considerable energy is concentrated in a very small area, which should have an effect on matter.

Answer 2

By applying an electrical discharge, researchers were able to form small quantities of important biological building blocks, such as amino acids. The finding of small amounts of similar compounds within meteorites arriving from outer space has also been put forward as an argument that such complex organic molecules can arise from natural proces in the univesre.

Beyond this point. however, the details become quite sketchy. How could a self-replicating information carrying molecules assemple spontaneously from these compounds? DNA with its phosphate-sugar backbone and intricately arrainged organic bases, stacked neatly on top of another and paired together at the each rung of the twisted double helix, seems an utterly improble molecule to have " just happened" - especially since DNA seems to posses no intrinsic means of copying itself.

More recently, many investigators have pointed instead to RNA as the potential first life form, since RNA can carry information and in some instances it can also catalyze chemical reactions the way that DNA cannot.

DNA is something like the hard drive of our computer; it is supposed to be stable medium in which to store information ( though as with our computer, bugs and snafus are always possible ). RNA, by contrast, is more like Zip disk or flash drive - it travels around with its programming, and is capable of making things happen on its own. Despite substantial effort by multiple investigators, however, formation of the basic building blocks of RNA has not been achievable in a Miller-Urey type of experiment, nor has a fully self-replicating RNA has been possible to design.

Answer 3

Perhaps, but to be fair, you should also have to create the gas and lightning from scratch, too.

Answer 4

If the gases contain all the necessary elements, yes. ~

Answer 5

It's already been done a long time ago.

Answer 6

Scripture says God SPOKE all things into existence with His Word:
" By the Word of the Lord were the heavens created, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.... For HE SPAKE AND IT WAS DONE; HE COMMANDED AND IT STOOD FAST". (psalm 33:6-9)

Answer 7

yes

Answer 8

The earth had *billions* of years to repeat that experiment. All it takes is for it to work *once* eventually (once it works, you're golden).

Answer 9

Sure. How much do you need?

Shipping is extra.

Answer 10

It has been done, but couldn't go any further.