Origins : Part 2 - How Life Began (A NOVA Miniseries)                               Name ___________________________

Study Guide  (Answer the following questions as you watch the video tape or DVD)

1.  When our atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide (and hydrogen sulfide):
a. the sun was dimmer
b. the sky looked red
c. the oceans were olive green
d. all of the above

2. This time period was also known as:
a. the time of genesis
b. the Armageddon era
c. the time of heavy bombardment
d. the gaseous phase

3. Which is NOT true of an environment dominated by hydrogen sulfide?
a. it is poisonous to humans
b. it smells like rotten eggs
c. creates an extremely acidic environment
d. life cannot exist under these conditions

4. Which element below is NOT one of the fundamental elements in life?
a. oxygen
b. silicon
c. carbon
d. nitrogen

5. Which element below is the most special for life?
a. oxygen
b. silicon
c. carbon
d. nitrogen

6. Why is that?
a. this element acts as "food" for life
b. this element forms a wide variety of bonds and compounds
c. this element is the most abundant element in the universe
d. this element is actually a form of life itself, therefore, all forms afterwards evolve from it

7. Stanley Miller's classic experiment tried to:
a. simulate the Earth's early atmosphere in the lab
b. generate life in a test tube
c. prove that evolution is wrong
d. show that life can exist in the vacuum of space

8. What was the result of this experiment?
a. nothing at all happened, .. proving that life cannot be found between the planets
b. it is possible to make life in the lab
c. complex amino acids formed
d. life could not have originated on Earth but somewhere else in the solar system

9. When examining ancient rocks from West Greenland, what evidence tells us that life could have existed on Earth 3.8 billion years ago?
a. you can actually see micro-fossils of bacteria in the rocks
b. the bacteria in the rocks actually made the rock in the first place, telling us the age of the rock and life was very old
c. isotopes of carbon were detected in the metamorphic rock
d. all the rocks below that layer were free of oxygen, all the rocks above showed there was abundant oxygen around

10. Don Brownlee used a jet flying at high altitudes to see if:
a. life could exist at extreme heights
b. the building blocks of life came from space
c. it were possible to detect life at Earth's surface from that height
d. life could survive a blast of cosmic rays

11. In 1969, the Murchison meteorite showed:
a. it contained amino acids
b. it contained a virus from space
c. that space was sterile
d. life cannot survive the impact with the Earth

12. What did Jennifer Blank do to see if complex chemicals could survive a sudden impact?
a. amino acids were placed in a spaceship and purposely crashed on the moon
b. peptides were placed in a particle accelerator
c. she did a crash test, .. and the crash dummies were amino acids
d. bacteria were placed in a huge centrifuge for several hours

13. The results of the experiment showed:
a. no complex molecules can withstand the shock of a sudden impact
b. the complex molecules were able to withstand the shock without any change
c. the molecules actually became more complex in the process
d. the experiment produced no results because of machine failure

14. What can be said about our understanding of the leap from complex chemistry to life itself:
a. it actually has been shown to be quite simple, .. in fact, it was performed in the lab
b. computer models show that you only need a handful of chemicals but plenty of time to produce life
c. the actual mechanism is not understood at all
d. in theory, it should be easy,  ... in practice, it is more difficult

15. Microbial life was discovered and could have originated in this type of environment:
a. deep below the surface of the Earth
b. at the top of the highest mountains
c. at the surface of a shallow sea
d. in the center of the continents, ... far from the oceans

16. These simple life forms live on:
a. oxygen in the atmosphere
b. sunlight
c. methane, ethane and propane
d. molecules which drift in from space

17. These single celled creatures divide (reproduce) every:
a. 1000 years
b. 10 years
c. week
d. hour

18. Another place life may have been safe from surface impacts (and may have originated) was:
a. hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor
b. in the very center of the Earth
c. on asteroids which were orbiting the Earth
d. on the tops of mountains because the surface lava never reached this height

19. After the impacts ceased, life was able to exist at the surface by using ____ as an energy source.
a. minerals from volcanoes
b. minerals which constantly float in from space
c. diamonds which littered the surface at the time
d. sunlight

20. In an attempt to learn about early life on Earth, Martin Van Kranendonk studied ___ in ancient rocks of Western Australia.
a. fossilized colonies of stromatolites
b. the migration habits of mammals
c. resistance to acids
d. isotopes of carbon compounds

21. His conclusion was:
a. life took a very long time to get started on Earth
b. life on Earth started very early and very fast
c. life did not originate on this planet
d. multi-cellular life forms were the very first forms of life on Earth

22. During photosynthesis, the waste gas, oxygen, initially produced these changes on the Earth:
a. made the Earth rust
b. produced massive deposits of iron oxide
c. evaporated the oceans
d. both a and b
e. both a and c
f. both b and c

23. Eventually oxygen built up concentrations in the atmosphere and as a result:
a. it allowed us to breathe
b. it allowed us to exist at a high level of activity
c. it protects us from solar UV radiation
d. all of the above

24. As a result of this, a huge diversity of multi-cellular life emerged on the Earth at about ____ on the 24 hour "Earth clock"
a. 4 am
b. 10 am
c. 3 pm
d. 9 pm

25. Single celled organisms dominated the Earth for about ___ of its history
a. 1/6
b. 1/3
c. 1/2
d. 2/3