The 1660s were an amazing time to be alive. Sure, the plague was going around and flushable toilets were few and far between, but the science was revolutionary! In fact, scientific work in this decade helped reshape the way we understand what it means to be alive.

Question

By the mid-1600s, many scientists had rejected the idea that animals like mice and eels come from nonliving, or inanimate, objects. However, it was still believed that smaller, simpler organisms were born through spontaneous generation.

For example, maggots were thought to be “born” directly from rotting meat. Before microscopes were invented, the bodies and behavior of small organisms were difficult to observe. Because scientists couldn’t see the reproductive processes of organisms like maggots and flies, spontaneous generation seemed like the only explanation for their origin.

In 1668, Italian scientist Francesco Redi decided to test this hypothesis. To do this, he put fresh meat in three jars. He left one jar open, covered one in gauze (a thin fabric with very small holes), and sealed the final jar.

After a few days, there were flies and maggots on the meat in the open jar. However, there were no flies or maggots on the meat in the gauze-covered and sealed jars. What’s more, flies appeared on the gauze before maggots did. Maggots didn’t come from raw meat, they came from flies!

Redi’s work was more than a gross collection of rotten meat and maggots (though it probably did smell pretty bad). With the results of his experiment, Redi was able to reject the theory of spontaneous generation, famously concluding that “All life comes from life.”

make ur observation, make it also answer the corresponding question "where do cells come from"

Answer 1

Francesco Redi’s experiments in the 1660s provided crucial insights into the origins of life, particularly in challenging the long-held belief in spontaneous generation—the idea that living organisms could arise from nonliving matter. His work demonstrated that maggots do not spontaneously emerge from rotting meat but rather come from the eggs laid by flies, thus emphasizing that life arises from existing life.

This leads to the broader scientific principle that can be summarized as "All life comes from life." In a modern biological context, this principle can be applied to answer the question, "Where do cells come from?"

Cells originate from pre-existing cells through a process known as cell division. This was articulated through the cell theory, which states three fundamental ideas:

1. All living organisms are composed of cells.
2. The cell is the basic unit of life.
3. All cells arise from pre-existing cells.

In conclusion, just as Redi's experiments debunked spontaneous generation for larger organisms, modern cellular biology confirms that cells arise from existing cells, reinforcing the notion that life begets life in a continuous cycle of reproduction and development.