Brainy Quote of the Day

Friday, January 21, 2011

Right and Left Hand Knowledge...


"In March, 2009, researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., reported the discovery of an excess of the left-handed form of the amino acid isovaline in samples of meteorites that came from carbon-rich asteroids. This suggests that perhaps left-handed life got its start in space, where conditions in asteroids favored the creation of left-handed amino acids. Meteorite impacts could have supplied this material, enriched in left-handed molecules, to Earth. The bias toward left-handedness would have been perpetuated as this material was incorporated into emerging life."

NASA link: More Asteroids Could Have Made Life's Ingredients

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