<story><title>The Impossible Burger</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/the-impossible-burger</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jxcole</author><text>The fact that they argued that leghemoglobin is safe because it is similar to other globins is kind of weird. A chemistry professor once told me that the chemical Thalidomide is a medicine that can be used to treat morning sickness, but if you only reverse the chirality it can cause birth defects.&lt;p&gt;In case you don&amp;#x27;t know, if you reverse the chirality of a molecule it is essentially what the same molecule would be when viewed in a mirror, with all it&amp;#x27;s directions reversed.&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikibooks.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Organic_Chemistry&amp;#x2F;Chirality&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikibooks.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Organic_Chemistry&amp;#x2F;Chirality&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>plus</author><text>The greater issue with thalidomide is that it racemizes in the body. That means even if you take the enantiomerically pure form of thalidomide which treats morning sickness, the teratogenic form will be generated in the body.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Impossible Burger</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/the-impossible-burger</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jxcole</author><text>The fact that they argued that leghemoglobin is safe because it is similar to other globins is kind of weird. A chemistry professor once told me that the chemical Thalidomide is a medicine that can be used to treat morning sickness, but if you only reverse the chirality it can cause birth defects.&lt;p&gt;In case you don&amp;#x27;t know, if you reverse the chirality of a molecule it is essentially what the same molecule would be when viewed in a mirror, with all it&amp;#x27;s directions reversed.&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikibooks.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Organic_Chemistry&amp;#x2F;Chirality&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikibooks.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Organic_Chemistry&amp;#x2F;Chirality&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>legulere</author><text>If you look into the superfamily of globulins, globular proteins you can even find the highly toxic ricin.&lt;p&gt;Also wikipedia states about non-human globulins that &amp;quot;these proteins can cause allergic reactions if they bind with human IgE antibodies.&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Globulin#Nonhuman_globulins&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Globulin#Nonhuman_globulins&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>