Hello, excuse me, just before this podcast begins, I want to tell you about another one.

Kalki presents My Indian Life. I'm the first bit of that, Kalki Kekla. I'm a

Bollywood actor and now a podcast presenter too.

My Indian life is about being young and Indian in the 21st century.

Every episode tells a story about real life in India, sometimes pretty raw, sometimes really uplifting. I won't be shying away

from tackling difficult topics. Search for my Indian life wherever you found this

podcast.

Hello and welcome to Discovery from the BBC World Service. I'm Philip Ball.

Excuse me, but it's only natural, let's face it.

And so, it used to seem, are the substances in your pee, which is largely a waste product of the body's metabolism

called urea, excreted by our kidneys.

Until the early 19th century, chemists assumed that natural organic substances like this can only be made

in natural organic ways, that is, by the rather mysterious chemistry that goes on inside living organisms like us.

But in 1828 a young German chemist wrote to his mentor saying this.

I cannot, so to speak, hold my chemical water and must tell you that I can make urea without need

of a kidney or even an animal, be it man or dog. The author of the letter was Friedrich Verla. Verla

created urea from decidedly non-living substances, salts containing ammonium and cyanate. He was excited because the

transformation seemed to cross a boundary. From inorganic to organic, from

inert matter to a product of life.

It's a key moment in the history of chemistry.

But like many scientific advances, this one has also been turned into something of a myth.

To read some accounts, this humble act of chemical synthesis sounds almost like the

...