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Stanley Miller, a scientist who pioneered research more than half a century ago in creating the primitive building blocks of life in a laboratory, has died at age 77.
Seeking to understand how life emerged from the ingredients of the universe, Miller in 1953 mixed basic gases approximating the earth's early atmosphere with an electric charge inside a glass chamber and produced amino acids, a building block of life. "If you've got the same starting materials and the same conditions, you're going to get the same compounds, that's for sure," he said. "The real question is whether there are very chance elements in the formation of life."
