Mondo Knows Facts
Pasteur's flask ended spontaneous generation
Boiled broth in a swan neck flask stayed sterile when air could enter A curved neck let air in but trapped dust and microbes before they reached the broth. Broth in that flask stayed clear, while broth in a broken flask clouded with growth. The 1861 experiments showed that microbes come from existing microbes rather than arising from the liquid. It sits in Mondo's science collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: biology, experiment, history
Pasteur's flask ended spontaneous generation: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Boiled broth in a swan neck flask stayed sterile when air could enter. The figure is taken from Royal Society, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a science fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Science shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.