Mention the contribution of SL Miller's experiments on origin of life.

Explanation

Oparin-Haldane.s concept of biochemical basis of origin of life was put to a test by Stanley Miller and Harold C. Urey (1953) in laboratory by creating the probable condi tions of primitive earth in the laboratory. They designed their apparatus of glass tubes and flasks as shown in the figure and created an atmosphere containing hydrogen, ammonia, methane and water vapour in one chamber of the apparatus and allowed condensed liquids to accumulate in another chamber. Energy was supplied by heating the liquid containing chamber as well as by electric sparks from two tungsten electrodes in the gaseous chamber.
The experiment was run continuously for a week and then they analysed the chemical composition of the liquid inside the apparatus. They found that the liquid contained a large number of complex organic compounds including some amino acids such as glycine, alanine and aspartic acid. Some more complex organic compounds were collected in vitro after a few days, purines, pyrimidine, sugar, glycerol, formic acid, short chain tatty acids and acetic acid.
However, from the result of their experiment, they suggested that the electrical discharges produced during lightening in the primitive atmosphere of earth containing hydrogen, ammonia, nitrogen and water vapour might have resulted in the formation of amino acids and other essential building blocks (sugars, nucleotides etc.) of living organisms, these could thus have formed life on the primitive earth. Thus, the experiment of Miller and Urey provides support for the biochemical concept of origin of life of Oparin and Haldane.