Related papers: Cosmic Rays and the Chiral Puzzle of Life
Biological molecules chose one of two structurally, chiral systems which are related by reflection in a mirror. It is proposed that this choice was made, causally, by magnetically polarized and physically chiral cosmic-rays, which are known…
It has been proposed that spin-polarized cosmic radiation can induce asymmetric changes in helical biopolymers that may account for the emergence of biological homochirality. The parity violation in the weak interaction has direct…
While biologists have not yet reached a consensus on the definition of life, homochirality - the specific molecular handedness of biomolecules - is a phenomenon only produced by life. The unraveling of its origin requires interdisciplinary…
Biomolecules that constitute life on Earth are chiral, but the precise mechanism by which homochirality emerged remains a mystery. In this work it is demonstrated that reactions of radical pairs, where one of the radical electron spins is…
The origin of bio-homochirality is a subject of much debate. The emergence of chirality and life on earth is a break of symmetry to be compared with the breaks of symmetry in the evolution of the universe. Based on a perspective of…
Life as we know it is homochiral, but the origins of biological homochirality on early Earth remain elusive. Shallow closed-basin lakes are a plausible prebiotic environment on early Earth, and most are expected to have significant…
Many of the building blocks of life such as amino acids and nucleotides are chiral, i.e., different from their mirror image. Contemporary life selects and synthesizes only one of two possible handednesses. In an abiotic environment,…
Most biomolecules occur in mirror, or chiral, images of each other. However, life is homochiral: proteins contain almost exclusively levorotatory (L) amino acids, while only dextrorotatory (R) sugars appear in RNA and DNA. The mechanism…
A key open question in the study of life is the origin of biomolecular homochirality: almost every life-form on Earth has exclusively levorotary amino acids and dextrorotary sugars. Will the same handedness be preferred if life is found…
Most amino acids and sugars molecules occur in mirror, or chiral, images of each other, knowns as enantiomers. However, life on Earth is mostly homochiral: proteins contain almost exclusively L-amino acids, while only D-sugars appear in RNA…
Chirality is breaking of mirror symmetry in matter. In the fields of biology and chemistry, this is particularly important because some of the essential molecules in life such as amino acids and DNA have chirality. It is a long-standing…
The search for life elsewhere in the universe is a pivotal question in modern science. However, to address whether life is common in the universe we must first understand the likelihood of abiogenesis by studying the origin of life on…
Chirality is not just a structural artifact in biology but it may provide for a genuine biological advantage. This is due to the phenomenon of chiral interaction (CI) which is described here for mechanical-chiral devices. The main…
(abridged) We review recent studies of chirality using circularly polarized light, along with the birth and evolution of life and planetary systems. Terrestrial life consists almost exclusively of one enantiomer, left-handed amino acids.…
We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential…
Conceptualizing planetary habitability depends on understanding how living organisms originated and what features of environments are essential to foster abiogenesis. Estimates of the abundance of life's building blocks are confounded by…
Chirality is an intriguing property of certain molecules, materials or artificial nanostructures, which allows them to interact with the spin angular momentum of the impinging light field. Due to their chiral geometry, they can distinguish…
Chiral molecules can selectively transport electrons of a particular spin orientation, yet the underlying mechanism remain poorly understood. Here, we present theoretical evidence that electrons propagating through chiral materials with…
The selection of a single molecular handedness, or homochirality across all living matter, is a mystery in the origin of life. Frank's seminal model showed in the fifties how chiral symmetry breaking can occur in non-equilibrium chemical…
Chirality is at the origin of life and is ubiquitous in nature. An object is deemed chiral if it is non-superimposable with its own mirror image. This relates to how circularly polarized light interacts with such object, a circular…