Francesco Redi's Experiments - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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Francesco Redi's Experiments
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in this video, we're going to introduce Francesco readies experiments. And so Francesco Redi Was an Italian scientist way back in the 1600s that became the very first scientist to publicly and openly challenge or disprove the idea of spontaneous generation, Which at the time in the 1600s, spontaneous generation was the most popular theory for how many organisms arose. Okay, And at the time in the 1600s, many scientists believe that fly eggs and maggots would actually spontaneously generate from decaying meat. And so Francesco Redi had designed a simple experiment to prove that flags and maggots actually do not spontaneously generate from decaying meat. And so Francesco Redi had two pieces of meat that he put into two separate jars, as we can see down below in this image. Now, the first piece of meat that Francesco Redi had, he put into a jar that was left opened or uncovered. And so this open jar allowed flies to enter the jar and access the meat where they could enter and lay their eggs on the meat. Now the second piece of meat that Francesco Redi had was placed into a separate jar that was actually covered with a fine gauze and this fine gauze prevented the flies from entering into the jar and prevented them from accessing the meat and laying their eggs on the meat. And so if we take a look at our image down below notice on the far left, we have an image of Francesco Redi who lived from 1626 to 1697 and conducted this experiment in 1668 and again, he had two pieces of meat, one over here and one over here that he put into two separate jars. The first jar he left opened so that the flies could actually access the meat and enter into the jar jar. And so of course the fly eggs and maggots were actually present on the meat in this open jar. However, the piece of meat in the second jar, the second jar he had covered. And so we have a covered jar over here and the covered jar prevented the flies from accessing the meat. And so they were not able to enter and access to meet. That means that they were not able to lay their eggs on the meat and the eggs could not develop into maggots. And so the flags and maggots were actually absent in this second part of the experiment. And so that's exactly what these results say up above is that the fly eggs and maggots, they appeared on the meat and the uncovered jar, but they did not up here and the meat on the cover jar. And so from this, from these results, Francesco Redi came up with a conclusion which is that fly, eggs and maggots which represents the life they do not spontaneously generate because otherwise, uh if they spontaneously generated from the decaying meat, then you expect there to be flies and maggots and the covered jar as well, but that was not the case. And so he concluded that they do not spontaneously generate from decaying meat, which was the non living matter. And so those experiment conclusions are also stated over here on the right hand side, that the first conclusion is that the maggots develop from the eggs that were laid on the meat by the flies. Uh And so the second part of the conclusion is that the flags and maggots do not spontaneously generate. Um and that the flags and maggots actually come from the flies themselves that come and lay their eggs. And then of course the eggs develop into the maggots and the maggots into the flies. And so, despite Francesco readies experiment, um many scientists at the time still remained skeptical and they felt that spontaneous generation was still possible and so many scientists were still determined to prove spontaneous generation. But Francesco Redi was the first scientist to disprove this idea of spontaneous generation. And so this year concludes our introduction to Francesco readies experiments. And as we move forward, we'll be able to apply these concepts and continue to learn about other scientists and their experiments as well. So I'll see you in our next video.
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Problem
Problem
Which of the following statements about Francesco Redi's experiments is TRUE?
A
He proved that bacteria were the cause of some types of diseases.
B
He used chicken broth to disprove spontaneous generation.
C
He showed that maggots could only form on raw meat if flies are able to lay their eggs on it.
D
He showed that maggots spontaneously form on raw meat.
