[decimon]

Cool. I'm left-handed.

[mtbopfuyn]

Woo hoo! Left-handers dominate!

[Man50D]

The Columbia University chemistry professor said that amino acids delivered to Earth by meteorite bombardments left us with those left-handed protein units.

If that's true then why is only 3% of the world population left handed? Lefties have been and are discriminated against! I want an investigation! ;O)

[allmendream]

There need be no underlying scientific explanation for the dominance of left handed amino acids any more than there was a underlying scientific explanation for the dominance of VCR’s over Beta-max.

Once one got a little more popular, for whatever reason, everybody wanted “in” on the game.

Moreover there are still right handed amino acid using life forms extant upon the earth. And amino acids form just fine by natural synthesis here on earth, there is no prerequisite for “amino acids FROM SPAAAAACE!” and I'm not sure a 10 to 20% bias towards left handed amino acids caused by meteorites being exposed to polarizing light added to the pool of terrestrial amino acids has much explanatory power.

Just my 0.02.

[RouxStir]

Humm, does this explain why college professors swing left?

[RoadTest]

Fairy tales.

[BigCinBigD]

Maybe Q was right.

[Lancey Howard]

Hmm. I use both hands interchangeably. I’m amphibious.

[jwalsh07]

“These meteorites were bringing in what I call the ‘seeds of chirality,’” stated Breslow. “If you have a universe that was just the mirror image of the one we know about, then in fact, presumably it would have right-handed amino acids. That’s why I’m only half kidding when I say there is a guy on the other side of the universe with his heart on the right hand side.”

Don't need a mirror image universe. If the guy lives in a town of 10,000 folks, about ten of them have their heart biased to the right side of the chest.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

BS. Postulating that life on Earth arrived through a meteorite pushes the explanation for life on to an impossible-to-determine other planet.
Stupid.
It arose on Earth.

[plan2succeed.org]

A fascinating theory. It must be nearly impossible to prove this. I suppose some meteors will need to be isolated before they become meteorites. One would have to examine meteors before they become “contaminated” by the Earth and its atmosphere. Right now, such a thing is the stuff of science fiction.

[count-your-change]

From The American Society of Imbibing Too Many Chemicals”, “It all came from meteorites! How do I know? Because I just said it did and that's proof enough for me. Research? I'll check what I said. Yep, research confirms what I said. Now write up a study and..blah,blah, blah.”

[decimon]

Southpaws-are-better-than-you-are ping.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I remember when this happened.

[Piquaboy]

Just because he said it does not make it true.

[WashingtonSource]

I didn’t know proteins have “hands.” Do they also have “arms”, “legs”, “heads”, “torso”, and “feet”?

[Dustbunny]

More 'Science Fiction'.

Geeze, will there ever be an end to junk science being presented as fact.

[rottndog]

“If you mix up chirality, a protein’s properties change enormously. Life couldn’t operate with just random mixtures of stuff,” he said.


But I thought their entire premise was that the origins of the universe, as well as life on earth, were the result of random events.

[ThomasThomas]

Meteorites? I thought it was the Amish.

[Youngblood]

Interesting hypothesis. The fact that the preponderance of amino acids found in those meteorites were of the left-sided type certainly suggests its a possibility. But, lets see where it goes from here.

[cookcounty]

"These amino acids “seeds” formed in interstellar space, possibly on asteroids as they careened through space."

'Splain me sometin':

Why would it be easier for amino acids to form on lifeless asteroids than on lifeless earth?