 From 1934 to 1939 Reich conducted what he called the bion experiments , which he published as Die <unk> : Zur <unk> des <unk> Lebens in Oslo in February 1938 ( published in English in 1979 and later called The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life ) . He examined protozoa and grew cultured vesicles using grass , sand , iron and animal tissue , boiling them and adding potassium and gelatin . Having heated the materials to incandescence with a heat @-@ torch , he wrote that he had seen bright , glowing , blue vesicles . He called them " bions " and believed they were a rudimentary form of life , halfway between life and non @-@ life . He wrote that when he poured the cooled mixture onto growth media , bacteria were born , dismissing the idea that the bacteria were already present in the air or on other materials . 
