Did X-rays in space kick start biological molecules?
6 Dec 2008 Molecules in nature can come in two different, mirror image types or ‘chiralities’. The basic molecules that make up all living things, however, have a predetermined chirality or ‘handedness,’ similar to the way people are right- or left-handed. This chirality has a profound influence on the chemistry and molecular interactions of living organisms. Just why a preference for one chirality should have developed from the elementary building blocks of matter has long been one of the great mysteries of the origin of life. Now, scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have found part of the answer by discovering a way to induce this preferential handedness in pre-biological molecules. ‘Understanding how the molecules necessary for life originated is one of the most basic scientific questions in biochemistry,’ Argonne chemist Richard Rosenberg said. ‘Chirality plays a fundamental role in biological processes and researchers have been trying to discove
