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    Classic Experiments: Origin of Life Forms: Spontaneous Generation

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    May Ann Dimaano-Hulgado
    This document summarizes several classic experiments that helped disprove the theory of spontaneous generation and showed that life comes from other life, not nonliving matter. It describes Redi's experiment showing that maggots came from flies, not rotting meat. It also discusses Needham's flawed experiment, Spallanzani's successful replication with boiling broth in sealed jars, and Pasteur's definitive experiment using flasks with S-shaped necks to prevent airborne microbes from entering the nutrient broth until the tops were broken, proving life arose from contamination, not spontaneous generation.

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    Classic Experiments: Origin of Life Forms: Spontaneous Generation

    Uploaded by

    May Ann Dimaano-Hulgado
    23 views21 pages
    This document summarizes several classic experiments that helped disprove the theory of spontaneous generation and showed that life comes from other life, not nonliving matter. It describes Redi's experiment showing that maggots came from flies, not rotting meat. It also discusses Needham's flawed experiment, Spallanzani's successful replication with boiling broth in sealed jars, and Pasteur's definitive experiment using flasks with S-shaped necks to prevent airborne microbes from entering the nutrient broth until the tops were broken, proving life arose from contamination, not spontaneous generation.

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    Classic Experiments

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    This document summarizes several classic experiments that helped disprove the theory of spontaneous generation and showed that life comes from other life, not nonliving matter. It describes Redi's experiment showing that maggots came from flies, not rotting meat. It also discusses Needham's flawed experiment, Spallanzani's successful replication with boiling broth in sealed jars, and Pasteur's definitive experiment using flasks with S-shaped necks to prevent airborne microbes from entering the nutrient broth until the tops were broken, proving life arose from contamination, not spontaneous generation.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    23 views21 pages

    Classic Experiments: Origin of Life Forms: Spontaneous Generation

    Uploaded by

    May Ann Dimaano-Hulgado
    This document summarizes several classic experiments that helped disprove the theory of spontaneous generation and showed that life comes from other life, not nonliving matter. It describes Redi's experiment showing that maggots came from flies, not rotting meat. It also discusses Needham's flawed experiment, Spallanzani's successful replication with boiling broth in sealed jars, and Pasteur's definitive experiment using flasks with S-shaped necks to prevent airborne microbes from entering the nutrient broth until the tops were broken, proving life arose from contamination, not spontaneous generation.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 21

    Classic Experiments: Origin of

    Life Forms
    Spontaneous Generation
     It was once believed that life
    could come from nonliving
    things, such as mice from corn,
    flies from bovine manure,
    maggots from rotting meat, and
    fish from the mud of previously
    dry lakes.
     Spontaneous generation is
    the incorrect hypothesis that
    nonliving things are capable of
    producing life.
     Several experiments have
    been conducted to disprove
    spontaneous generation.
    Redi's Experiment and
    Needham's Rebuttal
     In 1668, Francesco Redi, an
    Italian scientist, designed a
    scientific experiment to test the
    spontaneous creation of
    maggots by placing fresh meat
    in each of two different jars.
    One jar was left open; the other
    was covered with a cloth. Days
    later, the open jar contained
    maggots, whereas the covered
    jar contained no maggots. He
    did note that maggots were
    found on the exterior surface of
    the cloth that covered the jar.
     Redi successfully
    demonstrated that the maggots
    came from fly eggs and thereby
    helped to disprove
    spontaneous generation.
    Needham’s Experiment
     In England, John Needham
    challenged Redi's findings by
    conducting an experiment in
    which he placed a broth, or
    “gravy,” into a bottle, heated
    the bottle to kill anything inside,
    then sealed it. Days later, he
    reported the presence of life in
    the broth and announced that
    life had been created from
    nonlife.
     In actuality, he did not heat it
    long enough to kill all the
    microbes.
    Spallanzani's Experiment
     Lazzaro Spallanzani, also an
    Italian scientist, reviewed both
    Redi's and Needham's data
    and experimental design and
    concluded that perhaps
    Needham's heating of the
    bottle did not kill everything
    inside.
     He constructed his own
    experiment by placing broth in
    each of two separate bottles,
    boiling the broth in both bottles,
    then sealing one bottle and
    leaving the other open. Days
    later, the unsealed bottle was
    teeming with small living things
    that he could observe more
    clearly with the newly invented
    microscope. The sealed bottle
    showed no signs of life. This
    certainly excluded spontaneous
    generation as a viable theory.
     Except it was noted by
    scientists of the day that
    Spallanzani had deprived the
    closed bottle of air, and it was
    thought that air was necessary
    for spontaneous generation. So
    although his experiment was
    successful, a strong rebuttal
    blunted his claims.
    Pasteur's Experiment
     Louis Pasteur, the notable
    French scientist, accepted the
    challenge to re-create the
    experiment and leave the
    system open to air.
     He subsequently designed
    several bottles with S-curved
    necks that were oriented
    downward so gravity would
    prevent access by airborne
    foreign materials. He placed a
    nutrient-enriched broth in one
    of the goose-neck bottles,
    boiled the broth inside the
    bottle, and observed no life in
    the jar for one year. He then
    broke off the top of the bottle,
    exposing it more directly to the
    air, and noted life-forms in the
    broth within days. He noted
    that as long as dust and other
    airborne particles were trapped
    in the S-shaped neck of the
    bottle, no life was created until
    this obstacle was removed. He
    reasoned that the
    contamination came from life-
    forms in the air.
     Pasteur finally convinced the
    learned world that even if
    exposed to air, life did not arise
    from nonlife.

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