[HN Gopher] Calcium may have unlocked the origins of life's mole...
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       Calcium may have unlocked the origins of life's molecular asymmetry
        
       Author : docmechanic
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2025-04-14 01:41 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.sciencedaily.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedaily.com)
        
       | gilleain wrote:
       | Interesting, so it looks at polymerisation of tartaric acid (TA,
       | or O=C(O)C(O)C(O)C(=O)O in SMILES notation):
       | 
       | > They discovered that calcium dramatically alters how TA
       | molecules link together. Without calcium, pure left- or right-
       | handed TA readily polymerises into polyesters, but mixtures
       | containing equal amounts of both forms fail to form polymers
       | readily. However, in the presence of calcium, this pattern
       | reverses -- calcium slows down the polymerisation of pure TA
       | while enabling mixed solutions to polymerise.
       | 
       | Not so sure about their suggestion that poly-TA might be some
       | kind of RNA or DNA precursor.
        
       | kjkjadksj wrote:
       | Interestingly in many astrobiology threads quite a lot of
       | commenters use the racemic nature of organics on bolides as some
       | trump card against the possibility of panspermia on earth. In
       | this article we see that distinction is instead meaningless and
       | merely salt conditions are sufficient to influence chirality in
       | molecule formation from a homochiral or racemic state.
        
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