Pd. 7 OOL

:D

Aristotle and the Old Testament (300s B.C.)

• Abiogenesis: origin of life from nonliving matter

• higher-order organisms existed eternally

• refuted Old Testament, which said everything was made by God in 6 days

Francesco Redi (1668)

• Italian biologist

• Disproved spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots on decaying meat came from eggs laid by flies

Lazzaro Spallanzani (1765)

• Italian scientist

• Conducted experiments to disprove spontaneous generation, showing that boiled broth remained free of microorganisms when sealed

James Hutton (1726)

• Scottish geologist

• father of modern geology

• believed in the theory of natural selection

• Earth changes, so life has to follow (animals change because of environmental influences)

Georges Curvier (1797)

• zoologist and statesman

• father of paleontology

• function/habit → anatomical form

• each species has a special purpose, organs specific to the organism

• anatomical similarities disprove evolution

• disagreed with the idea of a continuous series of simple organisms up to humans, group classification

Thomas Robert Malthus (1798)

• English economist and demographer

• known for his theories on population growth, stating that populations grow exponentially while resources grow arithmetically, leading to inevitable shortages (population growth will always outgrow food source)

• observed social and economic circumstances in Europe

Jean Baptiste de Lamark (1801)

• French biologist

• known for his early theory of evolution (organisms can pass on traits acquired during their lifetime to their offspring), specifically studied giraffes

• He emphasized the role of environmental adaptation in the development of species

• 1st law - organs used/not grow or shrink accordingly

• 2nd law - All changes are heritable (hereditary)

Charles Lyell (1828)

• Scottish geologist

• travelled to Alps and observed geological patterns in mountains

• proponent of uniformitarianism, arguing that the Earth's features were shaped by continuous and observable processes over time, rather than by sudden events

• contributed to Darwin’s theory of biological uniformitarianism

Charles Darwin (1859)

NOTE: EVEN THOUGH THE YEAR IS LATER THAN WALLACE, THE CLASS ORDER HAS HIM BEFORE

• English

• amateur naturalist

• theory of evolution by natural selection (better traits = more likely to survive)

• traveled on the HMS Beagle to the Galapagos to observe distinct species of finches

Alfred Wallace (1858)

NOTE: EVEN THOUGH THE YEAR IS EARLIER THAN DARWIN, THE CLASS ORDER HAS HIM AFTER

• biologist and naturalist

• physical evidence of natural selection

• Asian + Australian species separated by imaginary border called “Wallace line”

• traveled to Malaysia to tabulate different indigenous species

• species evolve into more environmentally fit versions of themselves

Louis Pasteur (1858)

• French

• Invented pasteurization to make milk products safer, anthrax + rabies vaccine

• microorganisms cause fermentation

• motivated to save beer and wine industries

• disprove spontaneous generation

Ernst Von Haeckel (1866)

• German biologist

• biogenetic law: embryonic development is a record of evolution history (replay of ancestor adult form)

• Bent evidence :(

Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1918)

• BA in astronomy at cambridge

• proved natural selection with statistics

• reconciled inconsistencies between Darwin and Mendel

Alexander Oparin (1924)

• soviet biochemist

• influenced by darwin

• “primordial soup theory” - energy added to gas in Earth’s atmosphere before life, so the building blocks were already there (collected in pools of water)

JBS Haldane (1929)

• British, Marxist

• abiogenesis

• organic materials formed from abiogenic materials of an external energy source

• Life appeared in the warm, primitive ocean and was heterotrophic, maybe brought in by comets

• foundation for research on formation of cells

Harold Urey and Stanley Miller (1953)

• proved complex molecules of life could be formed on Earth through simple chemical reactions

• simulated the conditions of primitive earth

• proved inorganic matter could turn into organic molecules

Sidney Fox (1958)

• LA, biochemist

• explored how amino acids formed peptide bonds

• thermal theory - magma, springs, lagoons

• abiogenesis

• experiment to synthesize proteins with amino acids and intense heat, got polypeptides close to proteins, thought it was proof that heat could help form proteinoids

Alexander Graham Cairns-Smith (1966)

• Scottish artist and organic chemist

• professor at the university of glasgow

• thought life originated from clay (clay crystals → life building blocks)

• Not accepted, but helped biologists brainstorm ways nucleic acids formed

Carl Woese (1967)

• microbiologist and biophysicist

• RNA World Theory - RNA preceded DNA and proteins in the history of life

• RNA come from inorganic sources (nucleotides from primordial soup)

• RNA could self-replicate, random at first but took off with replication

Lynn Margulis (1967)

• SET (serial endosymbiotic theory), prokaryotes participated in permanent endosymbiosis, eventually making more complex cells

• endosymbiosis - mutually beneficial relationship where one organism lives in another

• noticed that mitochondria looks a lot like bacteria

Stephen Jay Gould (1972)

• paleontologist and evolutionary biologist

• theory of punctuated equilibrium - long periods of stability with swift periods of growth (challenged idea of gradual and constant evolution)

• explained fossil record discontinuities

• evolution of life using geological evidence and fossils

Thomas Cech (1982)

• American

• showed that RNA has catalytic functions

• showed RNA could split itself without protein

• overturned the idea that reactions are always catalyzed by proteins, suggested life started as RNA

Sean Carroll (1987)

• biology professor at the university of wisconsin

• researched genes controlling animal body patterns and roles in evolution of animal diversity (how animals evolve)

Günter Wächtershäuser (1988)

• german, background in organic chemistry

• early-earth hydrothermal vent research

• iron-sulfur theory

  • metabolism before life

  • early metabolic structures used hydrothermal vents as fuel

  • structures reproduced and made reactants for other metabolic structures, and once complex enough made organic compounds like amino acids

Louis Lerman (1992)

• Ph.D. from stanford

• “Bubble Model” theory of life - bubbles on the ocean surface and atmospheric aerosols were important in forming organic matter for life

• organic matter was present in ocean-atmosphere interface

• possibility for life elsewhere

Joan Roughgarden (1997)

• Evolution of niche width 

  • if you can’t compete, you die

• Evolution’s rainbow

  • animals that have gay members of the species still produce the same amount of offspring 

Don Brownlee (1999)

• LA, mineral named for him

• Stardust mission, collect dust from comet to get information about the history of the solar system

• supported the idea that Earth was uniquely suited for life (“Rare Earth” hypothesis), so it was unlikely to find extraterrestrial life

Jennifer Blank (2004)

• simulate Earth before life, see what meteors do (does one have enough energy to form stuff?)

• gas powered gun, bullets fires at 5000 mph towards a steel capsule with different amino acids

  • after, instead of amino acids, the capsule had peptides inside

Martin Van Kranendonk (2008)

• geology professor at the university of new south wales in australia

• analyzed a 3.48 billion y.o. Dresser formation, and there were small stromatolites in the rock formation (sedimentary rock formed by lots of microbes)

• thus, life must be at least that old

Jack Szostak (2009)

• London, Ph.D. in biochemistry, studied at cornell

• role of RNA: simple chemical system → self-replicating, life-like systems

• find out how the first self-replicating molecules formed

• non-living organisms could organize into structures with life-like behavior