The achiral key to life
From New Scientist.
One theory for the presence of single enantiomers in nature is that slight excesses of one enantiomer in the prebiotic world could have been increased further by autocatalysis, a reaction where the product promotes its own formation. These slight initial excesses may be extraterrestrial in origin, as they have been observed for a variety of chiral molecules found in meteorites.
However, Kenso Soai and co-workers from the Tokyo University of Science claim that the high deuterium content in meteoritic environments could mean that achiral compounds are just as important. 'Even the most simple achiral amino acid, glycine, becomes chiral when one of the methylene group's hydrogen atoms is substituted by deuterium,' explains Soai. 'Meteoritic chiral amino acids due to deuterium substitution may exist and may constitute the extraterrestrial origin of chirality.'
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss