Study of early life and prebiotic evolution In 1953 Stanley L. Miller (1930– ) prepared a mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water—compounds thought to be prevalent on Earth before life developed. Subjecting the mixture to electrical sparks produced amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. This was one of the first investigations into how life could have arisen from nonliving material billions of years ago. More recent research has suggested RNA to have been more crucial to the development of early life. Just how RNA came to be, and how it could have replicated prior to the existence of proteins and DNA, is a vital question in the study of prebiotic (or prebiological) evolution.