BIOL 1202- Midterm Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam ( 92 pages long!)
Document Summary
The earth is very old, about 4. 6 billion years old. The building blocks of macromolecules can be formed from nonliving matter if the conditions are right. In the 1920"s and 1930"s two researchers (atmosphere changes over time, and they studied other planets): Independently hypothesized that the atmosphere of the primitive earth was probably very different from today"s. Early atmosphere had little or no oxygen, rich in hydrogen, methane, other hydrocarbons and ammonia. Most of these can come from volcanic sources. * atmosphere (is different today) surface (make up conditions is different today) -> starting point for what becomes life. This process of chemical evolution is called prebiotic evolution. The hypothesis of abiotic formation of organic molecules was tested in 1953 in the laboratory of stanley. A variety of organic compounds were created. Amino acids, short proteins, sugars, fatty acids and nucleotides. All the building blocks can arise without life.