The authors wish to report their results on the photolysis of pyridine N-oxide in alcoholic solution. Both methanol and ethanol solutions of pyridine N-oxide were irradiated. The reaction mixture was analyzed by gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) using a 2.5% FFAP on Chrom G column and a Porapak Q column. In order to collect the products, the volume of the photolysis solution was reduced in vacuo and the resulting mixture was separated by preparative GLC.

In recent years the search for life-forms at the earliest periods of geological time has been continued not only at the morphological level but also at the molecular level. This has been possible as a result of the increase in the biochemical knowledge and with the advent of analytical techniques that are capable of describing the intimate molecular architecture of individual molecules in acute detail. The fundamental premises upon which this organic geochemical approach rest are the following: that certain molecules, possessing a characteristic structural skeleton, show a reasonable stability to degradation over long periods of geological time; that their structural specificity can be understood in terms of known biosynthetic sequences; and that their formation by any non-biological means is of negligible probability. In this manuscript it is proposed to critically re-examine these premises and to establish criteria whereby one can differentiate molecules derived from biological systems from those that have their origin in non-biological processes. The importance of establishing such criteria lies in the significance these criteria have in determining whether life exists, or has existed, on other planets. Within the very near future it may be possible to provide an initial answer to this question when the first …

The following text, transcribed from the remarks of those scientists who gathered at the University of Chicago on September 10, 1967, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first weighing of plutonium, tells an important part of the story of this fascinating new element that is destined to play an increasingly significant role in the future of man.