LODGE OPPOSED.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 9

LODGE OPPOSED.

NEW THEORY OF LIFE. Scientists Differ on Laboratory Creation. FROM NON-LIVING MATTER. (By Cable.—Tress Association —Copyright.) LONDON", June 10. Sir Oliver Lodge's bold prediction in the course of a lecture at Oxford that life will one day be produced in the chemist's laboratory has created much interest in scientific circles. Dr. J. S. Haldane, a leading autnoritv on bio-chemistry at Cambridge L~nive r bity. Dr. Haldano says great chemists are gradually building up out of inorganic materials some of the simpler kinds of molecule that are found in living beings, but these do not contain more than about 100 atoms, whereas the molecules of protein, the characteristic of living matter, consist of from 5000 to 10.000 atoms, which arc'arranged in a quite definite manner. Personally, he suspects that mankind will have to wait not one, but several centuries, before life is created in the laboratory, if it ever is. Professor Julian Huxley, who occupies the chair of zoology at King's College, London, says that in his opinion the creation of living from non-living matter cannot be regarded as impossible. ]\lany people are working on the subject at the present time.