the.com/organic molecules
carbon flirting with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen until something starts breathing.
means any molecule built on a carbon backbone, usually bonded with hydrogen and often oxygen, nitrogen, or other elements, that forms the chemistry of living things.
from 18th-century chemists thought these compounds required a mystical vital force from living organisms, until 1828 when friedrich wohler synthesized urea from inorganic salts in a lab and accidentally proved life had no monopoly on the chemistry named after it.
name is a fossilstill called organic though most are made synthetically
carbon countover 10 million known, more than all other compounds combined
found in spacedetected in comets and interstellar gas clouds
wohler's accidenttried to make ammonium cyanate, made urea instead