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New Twist Found in the Story of Life’s Start (2014) (quantamagazine.org)
76 points by amelius on June 18, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 12 comments


Reminds me of solid-state theory of life's origin, described by Robert Becker in his "Body Electric" book.

It proposes that life came from semiconducting crystals (various rocks and sediments in the ocean of hot primordial soup) affected by electrical discharges from ionosphere, and that right-hand chirality of isomers was influenced by Earth's magnetic field in Precambrea era.


>All life on Earth is made of molecules that twist in the same direction

That is...not true, or at least a little misleading. Each class of molecule in earth life twists the same way as other members of that class but not all classes twist the same. For example, nucleotides twist right/D, while amino acids twist left/L.


From the article:

Scientists later discovered that this bias encompasses the entire living world. Synthetic chemical processes will generate both left- and right-handed molecules. But when nature makes a molecule, the product is either left- or right-handed. For example, all amino acids that are used to make proteins twist light to the left.


This is from 2014. Does anyone know if there's been any advances since then on what is discussed here?


This article from 2016 has some peripherally related information: https://phys.org/news/2016-06-riddle-life-single-handedness....

They found that in a racemic mixture, an excess of D or L amino acids results in longer, sturdier polymers that don't break down as readily when exposed to hazards such as hydrogen peroxide, and that amino acids delivered by meteorites were slightly biased towards being L and thus catalyzing longer D nucleotide sequences.


Gerald Joyce continues to work on RNA, although I don't see specific publication on chirality since then as far as I can tell. https://joyce.salk.edu/publications/


I always remember the tragedy of Thalidomide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defect_crisi...) when reading about chirality.


Does this resonate as a "Klein Bottle" to anybody else? The illustration in particular.


A few weeks ago when I was searching for signs of cycloids hiding in nature, I came across scanned images of this obscure 1997 paper by Harvey A Jetmore Jr: "An Hypothesis of Antinomy [0]" Parts [1] and [2]. One idea that jumped out at me is Jetmore's hypothesized possible relationship between the cycloid, life and the helix, which he summarizes in Part 1: 8 and 9...

  8. I can not ignore the possible relationship of the
  inorganic and organic rhelms suggested by the transition of
  cycloidal to helical motion, whether the vining of the
  morning glory or the DNA helix. Could it be that evolution is
  a function of the relative cycloidal curvature of space; 
  location in time on the brachistocrone, so to speak, 
  ie: that evolution is a sort of continuous creation?

  9. It is tempting to suggest that the material world is the
  rehlm of the curate cycloid from the limit of the common
  cycloid to the limit of the circle. and that; 
  energy (waves) is the rehlm of the prolate cycloid from the
  limit of the common cycloid to the limit of the line, and
  that; the limit of the point/center/axis is the rehlm of the
  V-oid and the black hole: and that; 
  the inorganic world of life is the rhelm of the helix.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomy

[1] "An Hypothesis of Antinomy I: The V-oid" http://www.harveysspace.us/an-hypothesis-of-antinomy---i---t...

[2] "An Hypothesis of Antinomy II: Playing Dice with the Universe" http://www.harveysspace.us/an-hypothesis-of-antinomy-ii--pla...

NB: The formatting of the text on the Web page is a little messed up (scroll down to see scanned images of the paper).


This looks to me like crankishness close to the Time Cube level. Is there some reason why you think it's worthy of attention, or relevant to this? (Beyond the fact that it mentions helices, I mean.)


Cycloidal paths show up throughout the quantum world (hints of which I've posted about before [1]). This is the first time I've seen anyone pose a possible relationship between the cycloid, life and the helix. And in any case, sometimes there are gems buried in unknown papers. As Eric Weinstein states it, many things are "Pre-Correct, Currently Crazy" [2] -- the trick is to find them.

[1] Some interesting properties of cycloids and places they show up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18586144

[2] MIT AI Podcast: Eric Weinstein - Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19458503


Am I understanding correctly that this is claiming to have placed our world within our known map of math? Honestly I believe something about like that to be the case, anyone actually determining it exactly and proving it however I expect to take awhile longer, this ain't it chief.




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