I’m going to say it, this might be the most important scientific paper of 2025.

Out with the old and in with the bold.

I’m going to say it, this might be the most important scientific paper of 2025.

It’s a bold statement I know, but once you read about it, you can tell me if you think I’m right or wrong.

In 1952, an American chemist named Stanley Miller placed methane, ammonia, hydrogen and some water in a glass container, added an electric spark to simulate lightning, and changed our understanding of life's origins.

Now, 71 years later, a Spanish geologist has discovered something in that same experiment that Miller overlooked—and it might push the timeline of life's emergence on Earth back by hundreds of millions of years.

Juan Manuel Garcia Ruiz on a field site.

But the thing is, Juan Manuel Garcia Ruiz didn't set out to rewrite the history of life on Earth. He simply wanted to recreate Miller's famous "primordial soup" experiment, which had demonstrated how the basic building blocks of life could emerge from simple chemicals. But when Ruiz made one seemingly minor change to the experimental setup—using a Teflon container instead of glass—something unexpected happened: nothing. This “nothing” made headlines around the world and earned Ruiz and his team a $10 million euro grant from the European Union.

But, why?

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