28 Facts About Stanley Miller

Stanley Lloyd Miller was an American chemist who made important experiments concerning the origin of life by demonstrating that a wide range of vital organic compounds can be synthesized by fairly simple chemical processes from inorganic substances.

Stanley Miller was the second child of Nathan and Edith Miller, descendants of Jewish immigrants from Belarus and Latvia.

Stanley Miller's father was an attorney and had the office of the Oakland Deputy District Attorney in 1927.

Stanley Miller's mother was a school teacher so that education was a natural environment in the family.

Stanley Miller then had financial problems, as his father died in 1946 leaving the family with a money shortage.

Stanley Miller searched frantically for a thesis topic, meeting various professors, and he preferred theoretical problems as experiments tended to be laborious.

Stanley Miller was initially convinced to work with the theoretical physicist Edward Teller on synthesis of elements.

Stanley Miller found evidence for the production of amino acids in the reaction vessel.

Stanley Miller was always afraid that some specks of fly excrement might be the source of the amino acids he discovered in the reaction tube.

Stanley Miller eventually earned his doctorate degree in 1954, and a long-lasting reputation.

Stanley Miller then joined the Department of Biochemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, where he worked for the next five years.

Stanley Miller supervised 8 PhD students including Jeffrey L Bada.

The Stanley Miller experiment was described in his technical paper in the 15 May 1953 issue of Science, which transformed the concept of scientific ideas concerning the origin of life into a respectable empirical inquiry.

Stanley Miller's study has become a classic textbook definition of the scientific basis of origin of life, or more specifically, the first definitive experimental evidence of the Oparin and Haldane's "primordial soup" theory.

Urey and Stanley Miller designed to simulate the ocean-atmospheric condition of the primitive Earth by using a continuous stream of steam into a mixture of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.

Stanley Miller detected aspartic acid and gamma-amino butyric acid, but was not confident about them.

Stanley Miller showed his results to Urey, who suggested immediate publication.

Urey refused to be the co-author lest Stanley Miller receive little or no credit.

Stanley Miller then withdrew the manuscript from the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Stanley Miller succeeded not only in synthesizing more and more varieties of amino acids, he produced a wide variety of inorganic and organic compounds essential for cellular construction and metabolism.

Stanley Miller suffered a series of strokes beginning in November 1999 that increasingly inhibited his physical activity.

Stanley Miller was living in a nursing home in National City, south of San Diego, and died on 20 May 2007 at the nearby Paradise Hospital.

Stanley Miller was survived by his brother Donald and his family, and his devoted partner Maria Morris.

Stanley Miller is remembered for his work concerning the origin of life, the natural occurrence of clathrate hydrates, and general mechanisms of action of anaesthesia.

Stanley Miller was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 1973.

Stanley Miller was an Honorary Counselor of Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Research in 1973.

Stanley Miller was awarded the Oparin Medal by the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life in 1983, and served as its president from 1986 to 1989.

Stanley Miller was nominated for Nobel Prize more than once during his life.