Biogenesis

Biogenesis is the principle that living organisms arise from preexisting living organisms rather than spontaneously from nonliving matter.

Spontaneous generation: The discredited idea that living organisms can arise directly from nonliving matter under ordinary conditions. Biogenesis emerged as its rival, rejecting the spontaneous appearance of organisms.
Cell theory: The biological theory that organisms are composed of cells and new cells arise from existing cells. Its cellular principle gives biogenesis a mechanistic account of how living structures continue.
Abiogenesis: The study of how life could have originated from nonliving matter through natural processes. It concerns life’s initial origin, not the ordinary generation of organisms from organisms.
Germ theory of disease: The theory that specific microorganisms cause specific infectious diseases. Biogenesis supported the view that microbes spread from existing sources rather than appearing spontaneously.
Francesco Redi: An Italian physician whose 1668 experiments challenged the spontaneous generation of maggots from decaying meat. His controlled meat-and-fly experiment supplied an early test of spontaneous generation.
Cell division: The process by which a parent cell separates into daughter cells. It is the immediate source of new cells in many forms of reproduction.
Primordial soup: A hypothesis that early Earth’s chemistry produced organic compounds in environments such as shallow waters. It is one proposed setting for chemical steps preceding the first living systems.
Aseptic technique: Practices that prevent contamination by microorganisms during medical or laboratory procedures. Preventing microbial entry applies biogenesis in laboratory and clinical work.
John Needham: An English naturalist whose broth experiments were interpreted as evidence for spontaneous generation. His results became a prominent challenge to claims that life comes only from life.
Reproduction: The biological process by which organisms produce offspring or copies of themselves. It describes the broader process through which existing organisms give rise to new ones.

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