this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
38 points (91.3% liked)

science

16039 readers
772 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 6 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] recklessengagement 16 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Makes me wonder how all life came to use exclusively L-protiens.

Perhaps there was once a time where they both existed on the primordial earth, and natural selection preferred one over the other.

[–] AbouBenAdhem 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

natural selection preferred one over the other

Given enough time, a fitness-neutral variant will tend to fixation due to drift alone, unless there are density-dependent effects (i.e., unless being relatively rare increases fitness). The article is concerned that there may be some such effect, but the extinction of any primordial chiral life suggests that there isn’t.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

I read about it a while ago. Apparently, right-chiradial proteins can't produce some molecules the left ones can or react entirely different. I guess lc was just more practical?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Or one just happened to get access to a resource first (e.g. large clump of nutrients) and just grew faster.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I can put my right glove on my left hand

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

That's like the invert sugar of gloves.