(no subject)
Jul. 19th, 2005 01:50 pmSimon Conway Morris is no Jeffrey Lockwood, but I have made it to the fourth chapter of Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe and been rewarded with today's fun science fact, which I now share, in wildly paraphrased form, with all of you:
Many organic molecules exist in identical mirror-reversed forms; just as hands come in left and right, there are left- and right-handed amino acids (and the amino acids that make up every living thing on Earth are overwhelmingly left-handed, which is why Conway Morris was talking about it). The most famous example of molecule handedness, apparently, although I'd never heard of it, is a molecule called limonene, which produces two strong smells: (+)-limonene is found in oranges, (-)-limonene in pine needles. Same molecule, reversed--opposite smells.
And now, back to processing my second-to-last batch of serials for binding.
Many organic molecules exist in identical mirror-reversed forms; just as hands come in left and right, there are left- and right-handed amino acids (and the amino acids that make up every living thing on Earth are overwhelmingly left-handed, which is why Conway Morris was talking about it). The most famous example of molecule handedness, apparently, although I'd never heard of it, is a molecule called limonene, which produces two strong smells: (+)-limonene is found in oranges, (-)-limonene in pine needles. Same molecule, reversed--opposite smells.
And now, back to processing my second-to-last batch of serials for binding.