I found something in a moss sample a few weeks ago I couldn't identify, and then from watching this video realized that it was a spore!! I am so glad this channel exists.
This episode reminded me a lot of mycology being that you have to pasteurize and sanitize everything to prevent microbial growth, but not the deprive it of air for the mycelium to grow
As a cub scout working on a merit badge (LONG ago) I did an earlier version of the experiment involving the spontaneous generation of maggots in rotting meat. I was able to prove that even cheesecloth can be made to smell really bad.
I had a friend who left a sealed container of worms in the back of his car after a fishing trip, for over a week. All the worms transformed into maggots, and the worst smell I have ever encountered.
Your comment revived my memory of the incredibly stinking maggot jar I created, while trying to observe them turn into flies... had to abandon the experiment.
You know I have to wonder if life started multiple times. Like civilization. How do we know it’s one common ancestor instead of multiple that just transferred a lot of genes?
Still asking this question despite our scientific advances, reminds me that our understanding of our universe is still in its infancy. We’re only just getting started
this video only explains the "where do maggots come from?!" part, but does not even remotely touch on the main idea in abiogensis being the specific inorganic recipe preceeding life needed for that thing to become life. idk if intentionally misleading or not, leaving out things such as the Miller-Urey experiment? while the conclusions of creating amino acids and the possibility of creating life from amino acids is uncertain and inconclusive, it seems very worth mentioning. especially since at the end of the video, Hank talks about how we in fact "concluded" that life can't come from "nothing.", when literally all they look at in this video is already-existing microbes, not even remotely helping in the case of searching for the origin of microbes.
This is the reason we need to rely on science education, because recreating all the science that got us to this point is impractical. It doesn't mean science is 100% correct, only that we accept it as correct until it is conclusively debunked.
since i learnt about the oxygenation event it fascinated me that anaerobic bacteria have survived all these years with such inhospitable conditions, they literally survive under the soil and inside us just waiting for us to die so they get their turn to thrive, weird how a planet can be so inhospitable and yet so full of life. We are the invaders, our ancestors benefited from that event and we have thrived ever since, what could the world be like if that oxygenation event never happened, how advanced could anaerobic life get if it was given as long to evolve with favourable conditions as our ancestors had, if they are the dominant form of life in the universe then it could be anywhere and everywhere across the universe
The emotions and back and forth "fighting" between scientists involved in this question seems like they were not part of how science works, but in order for anyone to make any decision there must be emotion involved. Emotions and motivation to do science are connected in a vital way. You cant do science without your emotions and prejudices coming along with you.
it's fascinating hearing more behind the story of pasteur! i was never taught about the other broth experiments, or why the s-bend was important, and it's easy to believe that pasteur was the sole scientist who singlehandedly disproved spontaneous generation. but it's so much more nuanced than that!
How do the "correct" microbes discoverd and get to their corresponding food source, like how do the bacteria arrive at a carcass or why does mold appear even in a cloes box? You could call it; The dynamics of microbs...
I have a well established fish tank that I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on for a long while. It always amazes me when I discover new micro fauna that seemingly appeared out of nowhere
Ultimately, 'We must keep a place in our awareness to perceive that we can't preconceive'. - Dune Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, "as our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." In other words, in expanding our awareness, we just expose our ignorance. The more we come to know, the more we realize we do not know.
The Fungal spores at 5:26 really remind me of the genus Alternaria. Im incredibly certain that it is at the very least a Dothideomycete from the order Pleosporales. That is where my limited knowledge ends. Ill just presume it is an Alternaria species for now.
to me it seems weird why they ignored it when they literally talk about "abiogenesis", but then ignore the most popular experiment regarding it. i might be being too cynical here, but i know Hank is religious, and i could easily see this video as being an attempt to suggest to viewers that something magical like an almighty Gawd initiated life, ESPECIALLY since devout religious people hate the idea of abiogenesis so much since it doesn't align with fundamental theistic "creation" stories. Hank literally says at the end of the video that "we concluded that life can't come from nothing" which is firstly wrong, and secondly sounds like the talking point of a fundametal theist.
@@Oisaiahj by nothing i meant "non life", and by "something" i meant life. i should have clarified that to be fair. i have no intention of making the claim that life can spawn from a complete lack of mass and energy(aka Nothing), because this would break the laws of physics and also plain wouldn't make sense. (not that it has to) this was my main point. theists who do not consider the possibility of abiogenesis often have their own alternative theory of how life exists, often attempting to suggest some kind of magical influence, and not a natural progression. meanwhile, they don't know. nobody does to be fair, but one should never make assumptions, because it makes an Ass out of Umptions. is that how the saying goes? (just kidding :P) if you consider a fundamentalist Christian for example, anything which doesn't agree with "6000 year old Earth" "Earth created in 6 days", etc. etc., is not reliable to them, because they have faith in the stories which contradict many other theories.
@@ImHeadshotSniper I'd say the point of view of the Bible coincides with scientific theories to an extent. In the Bible plants and animals are made from the earth with the help of "mist" or water. The 6 day creation is more of a 6 day planning phase, as it states God creates and sees plants in Genesis 1:11, but then in Genesis 2:5 it states the earth didn't have plants until it had rained. This shows us God was planning out and seeing the future state of things during these 6 days. Scientific theories are similar to this, yet because science has a blind approach to figuring things out they differ in theory, but they may not in practice.
Somehow I thought this was going to be about the formation of life on the early Earth, about how it might have gotten started, and asking if that same thing, life just starting from amino acids and the like, can still happen today. My guess would be that it is still technically possible, just extremely unlikely since it is a lot easier for life to come from other life, and offspring of already existing organisms would have a huge head start over anything that might generate from the right conditions. But who knows, there might be microbes on our very planet that aren't at all related to us, perhaps even right under our noses. Imagine how huge that would be to discover.
@@qureshib61specifically by "something" they mean life, and by "nothing" they mean non-life. this video makes a conclusion i strongly disagree with and i even suspect deceptive intentions with what very important information they decided to leave out! (specifically a religious bias since fundamental theists are very afraid of the idea of abiogensis since it contradicts the theistic creation story.)
This makes me think of a related topic: If the earth's first microbes were spawned from naturally-occurring chemical mixtures in earth's early history, then why don't we see that happening anymore?
Because there’s already developed microbes that will eat those organic chemicals, so new life is out competed by the life that already exists which use those developing complex molecules to sustain themselves. I find it interesting because when you think about it, it makes sense that the molecules that make up developing life (or similar chemical systems) would be nutritious to already existing life, and so those complex chemicals never have enough time to evolve into more complex systems, which would likely require millions of years unimpeded, which won’t happen anymore with our current environment.
I'll add that this is why they call The progenitor chemicals "primordial soup". It's literally just soup. Sugars, amino acids, oils... you could eat it. Dunno if it would be tasty.
It's entirely possible that there is an entirely unique microscopic biosphere on Earth that generated separately from the one we evolved from. Perhaps multiple. The problem with discovering it is that the world is huge and microbes are extremely small, and would generally be outcompeted for resources by the predominant biosphere (ours). So if it does exist, it's likely carved out a very tiny ecological niche.
@@dolebiscuitEarth probably has only the one tree of life but there may have been more in the early days. We know that from the deepest rocks to the highest mountains to the hottest hydrothermal vents to the hull of the ISS, all life is genetically related and there's pretty much nowhere that life can't be found on our planet. We know some of our bacteria can thrive even on Mars. If there was another lineage or a thousand of them they would have to contend with the competition and several mass extinctions. The great oxygenation event alone would probably have destroyed all of them.
@@dolebiscuitplus, how would we know if we discovered it? Any observation would probably be accidental, extremely remote and immediately contaminated by the more developepd junk we're carrying around with us.
Hank Green, you sir, are a legend of our lifetime! thank you soo much for your delivery of concepts and science covering an amazing spectrum of subjects. thank you from the heart. my kids have grown up loving science and being curious, largely in part to your youtube videos.
A key info is missing: what is the definition of “spontaneously” here? It has changed quite a bit along the way, hasn’t it? This constantly updating definition now contains the disclaimer that it all fully depends on our current capability of recognising ways genetic information could get inside the closed jar. Also, a very closely connected question would be whether mindless atoms are capable to “spontaneously” self-assemble themselves into proteins to start with? Or, to ask a precise question, shall I define “mindlessness” first? And will this comment ever end?
I haven't thought much about this subject since high-school biology! Life has to have come from non-life, but there is nothing "spontaneous" about it! Interesting historical journey!
I have an unusual request, I Want to know what kind of microbes exist in like a lathe machine's oil and surface, how about machines that are sterilized? I'm just curious what sort of microbes exist in the surfaces of non living things, how about gasoline or engine oil? Hydraulic water?
I often wonder what microbes can survive on things like scrap metal and old rubber, and yes, in old oil and fuel and such. I'm just genuinely curious, being around that stuff all day. Would a microbiome like that be considered "artificial"? Have we triggered the evolution of entirely new species by leaving so many metals and petrochemicals exposed to open air?
Very occasionally, in the course of recorded human speech, a voice comes along that resonates abiding truth. Walter Cronkite, Carl Sagan and David Attenburough come to mind. Hank Green, you have just such a beautiful, important blessing and we are the benefactors. Thank you Sir!
The Royal institution published how life may have generated from only helium and hydrogen over time. Basically stating microbes generated from everything. It's great to be alive!
Also, even though the experiments were lovely and revolutionary to their time, they weren't really representative to the scale (in regards to both size and time) and forces (like lightnings, waves and whatnot...) that existed on Earth before life... so to claim that the theory was PROVEN wrong is very wrong on its own
In principle quantum fluctuations can generate anything spontaneously given enough time. Some physicists even hypothesize the big bang is just an extremely unlikely quantum fluctuation in empty space. Small things like microbes should be much more likely to happen spontaneously but still may require a very large time to pass to happen with certainty.
I'd be interested to see Viktor Grebennikov's beach sand experiment repeated... His work seemed to support abiogenisis but it's possible there was a source of contamination.
At some point... Somewhere... Not necessarily earth, non life... Did indeed become life, somehow. The fact were here, and the stuff around us... Is here too, kinda proves that. I don't know where, it happened, when, how or why... But it must have, because if it didn't... Then, how do you explain life? Any life?
Wouldn't "spontaneous generation," specifically "abiogenesis," have to exist given current theories about the origins of life? At one point, life in the universe was nonexistent, then life (as we define it) came into being. The "spontaneity" would be the very moment in which it changed from what we consider nonliving to living... Right? It might be a protracted process of millions of years, but the metric by which we define life would necessitate a specific instance in which the qualities we use to define what is living goes from not met to met, and that instance or point of transition would be "spontaneous," and an example of "abiogenesis"... I think... "Spontaneity" by human perception of a couple hours or weeks, vs "spontaneity" in a comsic sense are probabily not equivalent, right? I mean, humanity is just a blip in the history of the universe, afterall... If anyone has any thoughts, please share!
@@sentientflower7891That doesn't really address what I said... I'm asking how do you reconcile that abiogenesis does NOT happen when current theories of life on Earth seem to necessitate it?
@@kylec8015 Abiogenesis is Impossible whether it is considered necessary or not. Chemistry doesn't lead to biochemistry. For anyone who considers Abiogenesis essential they will need to seek a different option, if they can't find another the question must remain unanswered.
I would point out that this only disproves EXISTING microorganisms from appearing from nothing, but does nothing to disprove whether microbes could eventually form from non-living substances. Otherwise how do you ever get life in the first place? If what you're saying were true, then life would need a creator, but that's clearly not true. Organic compounds form and then become the building blocks of certain chemicals, which eventually form into living organisms after millions or billions of years. Your assumption is that spontaneous generation is the product of short-term processes that causes it to occur immediately, rather than long-term processes that take vastly longer periods of time.
Yep. And even if there is a creator that just pushes back the question: did THAT thing just spontaneously emerge? A creator would be more complex and have much lower entropy than a simple life form, so where did thay come from?
Would be great if you were showing some kind of a schematic or animation of how the experiment setup looked like at 9:00 timestamp - the experiment with S shape tube. I was listening to this but don't fully fully get it yet without googling more. But overall an amazing video, thanks! Please make more videos about history of science, how they managed to build the experimental setups with the knowledge they had at the time, and so on. If you're reading this comment - can you please reply with a list of books you recommend on the history of science, biology, chemistry, physics? Love! 🫡💚✨
Another idea of things coming into existence is by dusty complex plasma particles as described in the "A new science of heaven" by Robert Temple. An awesome book.
Dam. Just discovered mine is a ko. I knew it just felt a bit "off" wasn't until i went and looked up how much they were going for on Ebay and saw a suspicious number being sold from China. 😢
Abiogenesis is quite literally impossible and you should do another video regarding the increasingly desperate hopeless quest for Abiogenesis since the original conception of the prebiotic soup. That video will take longer thab ten minutes and will involve quite a bit of chemistry and biochemistry. You should bring up Assembly Theory as it is extremely relevant and very much incompatible with Abiogenesis.
@@LimeyLassen the Universe isn't obligated to provide you with an alternative theory or even an explanation. There are mysteries which science cannot ever answer.
@@LimeyLassen it would seem that if Abiogenesis was possible at all it would have occurred by now since Pasteurization begins with biologically sourced molecules in pure concentration so if those molecules could self organize into life or even if they could accidentally associate into life Pasteurized solutions would occasionally result in the origin of life.
they leave this out in the video even though it's the main point of abiogenesis which they even mentioned. rejection of abiogenesis is common in fundamental theists since it disagrees with their man written stories, and while i don't want to sound too cynical here, i know that Hank is a Christian, and it would tooootally make sense for him to leave out the main point of abiogensis.
I love all these little stories about scientists and experiments almost as much as seeing the microbes under your microscopes! I often get curious about all the knowledge we have lost from places that were not so scientifically and culturally entwined with Western civilizational development. What work have we lost from the Ottoman Empire or China or Africa or the Americas? What work has been ignored from slaves, women, and immigrants in those important times of scientific development? It's kinda sad to think about, but also inspiring to ponder what some farmer far away from the bustle of industrialization was working on in his shed, say, if the crops or animals were afflicted or what experiments he tried to make the crops grow fatter or with less water. We tend to dismiss everything outside the Enlightenment bubble as witchcraft and hoo-doo, but those villages and farmers had to work within the same parameters of reality as we do now, so they must have had a scientific method of their own, too, right?
I know that if you can see the dust in the air, that your samples will get contaminated. Have people ever put a dirty air filter under a microscope? How about conducting an experiment where you have a "Clean Room" with purified air, and a dusty room with Controllable Humidity levels?
The thing is we know spontaneous generation CAN happen otherwise where did life come from? The flaw in these experiments, even Pasteur's is inadequate scale. The odds are certainly infinitesimally small, but non-zero.
Spontaneous generation, as proposed in the 19th century, is false and no one in the field of evolutionary biology today would argue it can happen. Abiogenesis as we understand it is not about a single, odd-defying random ocurrence but the completely logical, probable, and progressive organization of organic compounds to form the first complexes with life-like characteristics (e.g. Stability, replication, etc.).
It does need certain conditions and a very long time-span though. So for all intents and purposes, abiogenesis is irrelevant for us (in terms of medical applications for example)
I know this channel is all about mostly microbes, but could we get an episode about fungi and their microscopic structures?
Yes, more fungi and their networks, please!
More fungi content would be appreciated. They're so cool!
Ah a larger life lover. Nay none of those here. Too big. Lol I'm joking. It would be great to see such things here.
I would love to see fungal spores growing
PLEASE
I found something in a moss sample a few weeks ago I couldn't identify, and then from watching this video realized that it was a spore!! I am so glad this channel exists.
Could have been a moss spore since moss are seedless non vascular plants! :)
This episode reminded me a lot of mycology being that you have to pasteurize and sanitize everything to prevent microbial growth, but not the deprive it of air for the mycelium to grow
As a cub scout working on a merit badge (LONG ago) I did an earlier version of the experiment involving the spontaneous generation of maggots in rotting meat. I was able to prove that even cheesecloth can be made to smell really bad.
Huzzah for science!
I had a friend who left a sealed container of worms in the back of his car after a fishing trip, for over a week. All the worms transformed into maggots, and the worst smell I have ever encountered.
@@moosemaimer Well in that case it’s alchemy. You’ve just converted one kind of worm to another.
@@moosemaimer Fly eggs are tiny, newly hatched maggots are even smaller, they can fit through the most impossible cracks.
Your comment revived my memory of the incredibly stinking maggot jar I created, while trying to observe them turn into flies... had to abandon the experiment.
It's good to have you back Hank. You're my favourite presenter. The rest of the team did a great job while you were healing
Hank is the most thoughtful dude, casually making sure the patrons aren't boiled in a flask... Man's watching out for all of 'em.
These are so chill and informative. Best videos to wind down with
You know I have to wonder if life started multiple times. Like civilization. How do we know it’s one common ancestor instead of multiple that just transferred a lot of genes?
"These are our patrons on Patrion. If you put them in a flask and boiled it, I would be very mad at you." 😂😂😂
This is sooo soothing. The music, Hank’s narration. Wonderful.
And interesting, too!
Nothing is spontaneous. If something appears spontaneous, keep looking for the source.
Still asking this question despite our scientific advances, reminds me that our understanding of our universe is still in its infancy. We’re only just getting started
this video only explains the "where do maggots come from?!" part, but does not even remotely touch on the main idea in abiogensis being the specific inorganic recipe preceeding life needed for that thing to become life.
idk if intentionally misleading or not, leaving out things such as the Miller-Urey experiment?
while the conclusions of creating amino acids and the possibility of creating life from amino acids is uncertain and inconclusive, it seems very worth mentioning.
especially since at the end of the video, Hank talks about how we in fact "concluded" that life can't come from "nothing.", when literally all they look at in this video is already-existing microbes, not even remotely helping in the case of searching for the origin of microbes.
the fact they were still asking this question so late in our history baffles me.
Late in our history?
For all you know, we're the life-form equivalent of toddlers crapping in our pants in terms of a species' journey. 😂
@@Shanghaimartinhe means over the course of the history of our current civilisation
This is the reason we need to rely on science education, because recreating all the science that got us to this point is impractical. It doesn't mean science is 100% correct, only that we accept it as correct until it is conclusively debunked.
The reason why is literally the premise of the video lol
humans have only been around for about 250-350,000 years..
the first microbe arrived millions if not billions of years ago..
give us time
I know it's dumb, but every time I remember this channel is gonna end I want to cry. These videos are truly special.
It's gonna end?
Excellent episode. Love the microbes and history of science!
since i learnt about the oxygenation event it fascinated me that anaerobic bacteria have survived all these years with such inhospitable conditions, they literally survive under the soil and inside us just waiting for us to die so they get their turn to thrive, weird how a planet can be so inhospitable and yet so full of life. We are the invaders, our ancestors benefited from that event and we have thrived ever since, what could the world be like if that oxygenation event never happened, how advanced could anaerobic life get if it was given as long to evolve with favourable conditions as our ancestors had, if they are the dominant form of life in the universe then it could be anywhere and everywhere across the universe
The emotions and back and forth "fighting" between scientists involved in this question seems like they were not part of how science works, but in order for anyone to make any decision there must be emotion involved. Emotions and motivation to do science are connected in a vital way. You cant do science without your emotions and prejudices coming along with you.
This just reaffirms how vital I find this channel. So brilliant.
it's fascinating hearing more behind the story of pasteur! i was never taught about the other broth experiments, or why the s-bend was important, and it's easy to believe that pasteur was the sole scientist who singlehandedly disproved spontaneous generation. but it's so much more nuanced than that!
How do the "correct" microbes discoverd and get to their corresponding food source, like how do the bacteria arrive at a carcass or why does mold appear even in a cloes box? You could call it; The dynamics of microbs...
I have a well established fish tank that I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on for a long while. It always amazes me when I discover new micro fauna that seemingly appeared out of nowhere
One of the best channels. It’s like every being is a planet of microbes.
Rust is the substrate where microbacterial mats come from. So you just need a little rust.
could do a video replicating pasteur's fermentation studies (it's weird to think of a time before our modern understanding of yeast)
Ultimately, 'We must keep a place in our awareness to perceive that we can't preconceive'. - Dune
Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, "as our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." In other words, in expanding our awareness, we just expose our ignorance. The more we come to know, the more we realize we do not know.
Nice work Hank!!
The Fungal spores at 5:26 really remind me of the genus Alternaria. Im incredibly certain that it is at the very least a Dothideomycete from the order Pleosporales.
That is where my limited knowledge ends.
Ill just presume it is an Alternaria species for now.
You should cover the Miller-Urey experiment next. That one's always captivated me since I was young.
Ho here: What the famous Miller-Urey experiment got wrong.
to me it seems weird why they ignored it when they literally talk about "abiogenesis", but then ignore the most popular experiment regarding it.
i might be being too cynical here, but i know Hank is religious, and i could easily see this video as being an attempt to suggest to viewers that something magical like an almighty Gawd initiated life, ESPECIALLY since devout religious people hate the idea of abiogenesis so much since it doesn't align with fundamental theistic "creation" stories.
Hank literally says at the end of the video that "we concluded that life can't come from nothing" which is firstly wrong, and secondly sounds like the talking point of a fundametal theist.
@@ImHeadshotSnipersaying life can't come from nothing is wrong?
What's next saying the universe can't create itself is wrong too?
@@Oisaiahj by nothing i meant "non life", and by "something" i meant life. i should have clarified that to be fair.
i have no intention of making the claim that life can spawn from a complete lack of mass and energy(aka Nothing), because this would break the laws of physics and also plain wouldn't make sense. (not that it has to)
this was my main point. theists who do not consider the possibility of abiogenesis often have their own alternative theory of how life exists, often attempting to suggest some kind of magical influence, and not a natural progression.
meanwhile, they don't know. nobody does to be fair, but one should never make assumptions, because it makes an Ass out of Umptions. is that how the saying goes? (just kidding :P)
if you consider a fundamentalist Christian for example, anything which doesn't agree with "6000 year old Earth" "Earth created in 6 days", etc. etc., is not reliable to them, because they have faith in the stories which contradict many other theories.
@@ImHeadshotSniper I'd say the point of view of the Bible coincides with scientific theories to an extent.
In the Bible plants and animals are made from the earth with the help of "mist" or water.
The 6 day creation is more of a 6 day planning phase, as it states God creates and sees plants in Genesis 1:11, but then in Genesis 2:5 it states the earth didn't have plants until it had rained. This shows us God was planning out and seeing the future state of things during these 6 days.
Scientific theories are similar to this, yet because science has a blind approach to figuring things out they differ in theory, but they may not in practice.
I love this channel so much; I don't know how else to express it
Buen material audiovisual! Gran motivación para los que se adentran en el mundo microscópico!
Somehow I thought this was going to be about the formation of life on the early Earth, about how it might have gotten started, and asking if that same thing, life just starting from amino acids and the like, can still happen today. My guess would be that it is still technically possible, just extremely unlikely since it is a lot easier for life to come from other life, and offspring of already existing organisms would have a huge head start over anything that might generate from the right conditions.
But who knows, there might be microbes on our very planet that aren't at all related to us, perhaps even right under our noses. Imagine how huge that would be to discover.
Sounds like a decent B-horror movie premise
@@Badficwriter Come to think of it, yeah. Or an X-files episode.
Something cannot from nothing. Its a contradiction
@@qureshib61 Nobody is saying that, though.
@@qureshib61specifically by "something" they mean life, and by "nothing" they mean non-life.
this video makes a conclusion i strongly disagree with and i even suspect deceptive intentions with what very important information they decided to leave out!
(specifically a religious bias since fundamental theists are very afraid of the idea of abiogensis since it contradicts the theistic creation story.)
More Microcosms history lessons pls🤓
This makes me think of a related topic:
If the earth's first microbes were spawned from naturally-occurring chemical mixtures in earth's early history, then why don't we see that happening anymore?
Because there’s already developed microbes that will eat those organic chemicals, so new life is out competed by the life that already exists which use those developing complex molecules to sustain themselves. I find it interesting because when you think about it, it makes sense that the molecules that make up developing life (or similar chemical systems) would be nutritious to already existing life, and so those complex chemicals never have enough time to evolve into more complex systems, which would likely require millions of years unimpeded, which won’t happen anymore with our current environment.
I'll add that this is why they call The progenitor chemicals "primordial soup". It's literally just soup. Sugars, amino acids, oils... you could eat it. Dunno if it would be tasty.
It's entirely possible that there is an entirely unique microscopic biosphere on Earth that generated separately from the one we evolved from. Perhaps multiple. The problem with discovering it is that the world is huge and microbes are extremely small, and would generally be outcompeted for resources by the predominant biosphere (ours). So if it does exist, it's likely carved out a very tiny ecological niche.
@@dolebiscuitEarth probably has only the one tree of life but there may have been more in the early days. We know that from the deepest rocks to the highest mountains to the hottest hydrothermal vents to the hull of the ISS, all life is genetically related and there's pretty much nowhere that life can't be found on our planet. We know some of our bacteria can thrive even on Mars. If there was another lineage or a thousand of them they would have to contend with the competition and several mass extinctions. The great oxygenation event alone would probably have destroyed all of them.
@@dolebiscuitplus, how would we know if we discovered it? Any observation would probably be accidental, extremely remote and immediately contaminated by the more developepd junk we're carrying around with us.
Another lovely part of our journey, fascinating and beautiful. Thanks.
Hank Green, you sir, are a legend of our lifetime! thank you soo much for your delivery of concepts and science covering an amazing spectrum of subjects. thank you from the heart. my kids have grown up loving science and being curious, largely in part to your youtube videos.
I am always astonished at how quickly and abundantly drosophila spontaniously generate when I leave organic matter around for too long.
I learn so much from this channel. Love it ✊🏾❤
A key info is missing: what is the definition of “spontaneously” here? It has changed quite a bit along the way, hasn’t it? This constantly updating definition now contains the disclaimer that it all fully depends on our current capability of recognising ways genetic information could get inside the closed jar. Also, a very closely connected question would be whether mindless atoms are capable to “spontaneously” self-assemble themselves into proteins to start with? Or, to ask a precise question, shall I define “mindlessness” first? And will this comment ever end?
Cell theory states that all cells come from other cells
I haven't thought much about this subject since high-school biology! Life has to have come from non-life, but there is nothing "spontaneous" about it!
Interesting historical journey!
I have an unusual request, I Want to know what kind of microbes exist in like a lathe machine's oil and surface, how about machines that are sterilized? I'm just curious what sort of microbes exist in the surfaces of non living things, how about gasoline or engine oil? Hydraulic water?
I often wonder what microbes can survive on things like scrap metal and old rubber, and yes, in old oil and fuel and such. I'm just genuinely curious, being around that stuff all day. Would a microbiome like that be considered "artificial"? Have we triggered the evolution of entirely new species by leaving so many metals and petrochemicals exposed to open air?
When I was a kid I instictly had the thought that larvae could generate spontaneously from the fruits, but even then I knew it was a dumb idea
Very occasionally, in the course of recorded human speech, a voice comes along that resonates abiding truth. Walter Cronkite, Carl Sagan and David Attenburough come to mind. Hank Green, you have just such a beautiful, important blessing and we are the benefactors. Thank you Sir!
Beautifully told. Thank you.
"These folks here are our Patreon Patrons. If you put them in a flask and boil it, I would be So. Mad At You." XDDDD
The Royal institution published how life may have generated from only helium and hydrogen over time. Basically stating microbes generated from everything. It's great to be alive!
Could you make an episode on Frits Zernike who received a Nobel prize seventy years ago for inventing the phase-contrast microscope?
You need to make an audio book and just talk into depth about this for eight hours.
"These folks here are our patrons. If you put them in a flack and boil it I would be so mad at you."
😄
Thanks Journey
It would have been a nice mention of developing RNA from basic chemicals and electrical charge.
I was waiting for this too
Also, even though the experiments were lovely and revolutionary to their time, they weren't really representative to the scale (in regards to both size and time) and forces (like lightnings, waves and whatnot...) that existed on Earth before life... so to claim that the theory was PROVEN wrong is very wrong on its own
Well done, very informative.
Donde están las tiendas de Microcosmos?
Abiogenesis is another term for modern origin of life research, which seeks to explain how prebiotic chemistry became biological life.
which they weirdly don't talk about at all in this video
Spontaneous generation may be disproven, but abiogenesis certainly isn’t.
I mean, it's easy to turn grain into mice, provided you also have 2 mice 😛
In principle quantum fluctuations can generate anything spontaneously given enough time. Some physicists even hypothesize the big bang is just an extremely unlikely quantum fluctuation in empty space. Small things like microbes should be much more likely to happen spontaneously but still may require a very large time to pass to happen with certainty.
Spontaneous generation does happen, it just takes 13 billion years.
Exactly lol
So when people say "Lets be spontaneous!" its okay to just lay around. Something will happen. Eventually.
Watch - Origin the probability of one protein forming by chance
Are there bot only 2 options? Either life/microbes/organismis always existed, or they can spontanously form (as the first one did)
Ok but how did the bugs get in his bottle tho
Great video of the bacteria, spores and such. Mesmerizing.
Hank green voice is so iconic
My only question is how did life originally begin? And if given the proper conditions and time, could new microbes form?
I'll find it easy to believe that an iPhone can be generated spontaneously but not the simplest cell.
What? That makes no sense.
I'd be interested to see Viktor Grebennikov's beach sand experiment repeated... His work seemed to support abiogenisis but it's possible there was a source of contamination.
Like vacuum energy and virtual particles? Spinoza is doing the twist in his grave!
Can we hear of the updated experiment
please include whether the footage is brightfield/phase or dic
it was so brave of louis pasteur to stand in front of a crowd in a dress in the 1800's
At some point... Somewhere... Not necessarily earth, non life... Did indeed become life, somehow.
The fact were here, and the stuff around us... Is here too, kinda proves that.
I don't know where, it happened, when, how or why... But it must have, because if it didn't... Then, how do you explain life? Any life?
Yes, my thought exactly haha. I needed to see someone else voicing it.
Brilliant 👏🏿.
Vive la spontaneous generation!
I love microbe history videos as well
Wouldn't "spontaneous generation," specifically "abiogenesis," have to exist given current theories about the origins of life? At one point, life in the universe was nonexistent, then life (as we define it) came into being. The "spontaneity" would be the very moment in which it changed from what we consider nonliving to living... Right? It might be a protracted process of millions of years, but the metric by which we define life would necessitate a specific instance in which the qualities we use to define what is living goes from not met to met, and that instance or point of transition would be "spontaneous," and an example of "abiogenesis"... I think...
"Spontaneity" by human perception of a couple hours or weeks, vs "spontaneity" in a comsic sense are probabily not equivalent, right? I mean, humanity is just a blip in the history of the universe, afterall...
If anyone has any thoughts, please share!
Abiogenesis does not happen. Abiogenesis cannot happen. Abiogenesis is Impossible.
@@sentientflower7891That doesn't really address what I said... I'm asking how do you reconcile that abiogenesis does NOT happen when current theories of life on Earth seem to necessitate it?
@@kylec8015 Abiogenesis is Impossible whether it is considered necessary or not. Chemistry doesn't lead to biochemistry. For anyone who considers Abiogenesis essential they will need to seek a different option, if they can't find another the question must remain unanswered.
@@sentientflower7891Still not providing any proof for argument you vehemently make, I see.
@@margodphd Louis Pasteur provided the proof. Did you not listen to the video?
Thanks Hank
I didn’t even know hank had this channel!!!!!
I would point out that this only disproves EXISTING microorganisms from appearing from nothing, but does nothing to disprove whether microbes could eventually form from non-living substances. Otherwise how do you ever get life in the first place? If what you're saying were true, then life would need a creator, but that's clearly not true. Organic compounds form and then become the building blocks of certain chemicals, which eventually form into living organisms after millions or billions of years.
Your assumption is that spontaneous generation is the product of short-term processes that causes it to occur immediately, rather than long-term processes that take vastly longer periods of time.
Yep. And even if there is a creator that just pushes back the question: did THAT thing just spontaneously emerge? A creator would be more complex and have much lower entropy than a simple life form, so where did thay come from?
@@gregoryfenn1462you can't really expect logic from people pushing creationism ideas
@@gregoryfenn1462 That's a point that for the sake of argument I just chose to ignore, but you're right that it would need to be answered.
@@pablovirusthe universe was absolutely created. The Big Bang theory states everything in our universe came from nothing
Would be great if you were showing some kind of a schematic or animation of how the experiment setup looked like at 9:00 timestamp - the experiment with S shape tube. I was listening to this but don't fully fully get it yet without googling more. But overall an amazing video, thanks! Please make more videos about history of science, how they managed to build the experimental setups with the knowledge they had at the time, and so on. If you're reading this comment - can you please reply with a list of books you recommend on the history of science, biology, chemistry, physics? Love! 🫡💚✨
Can microbes appear out of nowhere?
They already did
If it cannot spontaneously generate, then how did life begin? Rather, it is highly improbable but has happened at least once
Another idea of things coming into existence is by dusty complex plasma particles as described in the "A new science of heaven" by Robert Temple. An awesome book.
Makes you wonder how future generations will look back at our current science
Could you please develop a tardigrade plùshie? Thanks!
Can you talk about Abiogenesis next?
They'd have to talk about panspermia if they did, because that's the only other explanation that fits the worldview.
@@spamin8r "they'd have to talk about panspermia"
Uh, no they don't.
Also: "worldview"? That's a little weird, to call it a worldview. You're sus.
Thx for the best
Whats the music? Reminds me of Boards of Canada
Dam. Just discovered mine is a ko. I knew it just felt a bit "off" wasn't until i went and looked up how much they were going for on Ebay and saw a suspicious number being sold from China. 😢
Abiogenesis is quite literally impossible and you should do another video regarding the increasingly desperate hopeless quest for Abiogenesis since the original conception of the prebiotic soup.
That video will take longer thab ten minutes and will involve quite a bit of chemistry and biochemistry. You should bring up Assembly Theory as it is extremely relevant and very much incompatible with Abiogenesis.
What's the alternative theory?
@@LimeyLassen the Universe isn't obligated to provide you with an alternative theory or even an explanation. There are mysteries which science cannot ever answer.
You don't know that. You're just confidently asserting it.
@@LimeyLassen it would seem that if Abiogenesis was possible at all it would have occurred by now since Pasteurization begins with biologically sourced molecules in pure concentration so if those molecules could self organize into life or even if they could accidentally associate into life Pasteurized solutions would occasionally result in the origin of life.
If you have many BILLIONS of years and a PLANET sized petri dish, it would appear to have happened at least once. Good luck disproving that.
The theory of coacervates is extremely interdisciplinary with this subject. But I don't remember anyone proposing this, I wonder why.
I will be washing my sheets RIGHT NOW!
But the wheat was transformed into mice. It just required a mother's help to do so.
Yes microbes can appear out of almost nowhere. That is how the first microbes came into existence.
they leave this out in the video even though it's the main point of abiogenesis which they even mentioned.
rejection of abiogenesis is common in fundamental theists since it disagrees with their man written stories, and while i don't want to sound too cynical here, i know that Hank is a Christian, and it would tooootally make sense for him to leave out the main point of abiogensis.
I love all these little stories about scientists and experiments almost as much as seeing the microbes under your microscopes!
I often get curious about all the knowledge we have lost from places that were not so scientifically and culturally entwined with Western civilizational development.
What work have we lost from the Ottoman Empire or China or Africa or the Americas?
What work has been ignored from slaves, women, and immigrants in those important times of scientific development?
It's kinda sad to think about, but also inspiring to ponder what some farmer far away from the bustle of industrialization was working on in his shed, say, if the crops or animals were afflicted or what experiments he tried to make the crops grow fatter or with less water.
We tend to dismiss everything outside the Enlightenment bubble as witchcraft and hoo-doo, but those villages and farmers had to work within the same parameters of reality as we do now, so they must have had a scientific method of their own, too, right?
Wow! 💚
yup everything came from nothing how do you think the universe started?
5:45 thought you gonna say 'our favorite invention,… cheese'
I know that if you can see the dust in the air, that your samples will get contaminated.
Have people ever put a dirty air filter under a microscope?
How about conducting an experiment where you have a "Clean Room" with purified air, and a dusty room with Controllable Humidity levels?
The thing is we know spontaneous generation CAN happen otherwise where did life come from? The flaw in these experiments, even Pasteur's is inadequate scale. The odds are certainly infinitesimally small, but non-zero.
Spontaneous generation, as proposed in the 19th century, is false and no one in the field of evolutionary biology today would argue it can happen. Abiogenesis as we understand it is not about a single, odd-defying random ocurrence but the completely logical, probable, and progressive organization of organic compounds to form the first complexes with life-like characteristics (e.g. Stability, replication, etc.).
It does need certain conditions and a very long time-span though. So for all intents and purposes, abiogenesis is irrelevant for us (in terms of medical applications for example)
Let's not conflate Spontaneous Generation and Abiogenesis now, OP.
Any luck on extracting audio from the microcosmos?
When will the microscopes be back in stock? :(