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Scientists in Australia have replicated a sticky brown prehistoric “goo,” believed to be the source of life on Earth, and discovered it has significant health benefits.

The primordial sludge was first recreated in the Fifties, but researchers have now found that molecules from it could be used as a coating for medical devices to reduce the risk of infections or complications.

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The coating, which can easily be reproduced, could be applied to implants such as bone replacements, catheters and pacemakers.

In an experiment in 1952, Stanley Miller attempted to simulate the primeval conditions believed to have led to the origins of life on Earth.

Miller, a chemist working at the University of Chicago, sent electrical charges through a mixture of water vapour and gases believed to have been present in Earth’s early atmosphere.

Within days, the repeated zapping produced a brown sludge made up of organic compounds, including several amino acids that form proteins and are effectively the building blocks of life.