Discovery demystifies origin of life chirality phenomenon

The origin of life is still a mystery with many unsolved puzzles. How were molecules created? How did they assemble into large structures? Among the conundrums, the "homochirality" phenomenon upon which amino acids and sugars form is particularly fascinating.
University of Akron A. Schulman Professor of Polymer Science Tianbo Liu has discovered that Mother Nature's clear bias toward certain amino acids and sugars and against others isn't accidental.
Liu explains that all life molecules are paired as left-handed and right-handed structures. In scientific terms, the phenomenon is called chirality.
Nature's selection of only right-handed sugars and left-handed amino acids upon which to build life might be much simpler than we expected before.
Liu found that any molecules, if large enough (several nanometers) and with an electrical charge, will seek their own type with which to form large assemblies. This "self-recognition" of left-handed and right-handed molecule pairs is featured in the March 10, 2015, issue of Nature Communications.
"We show that homochirality, or the manner in which molecules select other like molecules to form larger assemblies, may not be as mysterious as we imagined," Liu says.
While an understanding of how homochirality occured at the onset of life remains a mystery, this new finding emphasizes that Mother Nature's inner workings may not be as complex as we think.

Explore further: Chemists crack the chirality code
More information: "Chiral recognition and selection during the self-assembly process of protein-mimic macroanions." Nature Communications 6, Article number: 6475. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7475


http://phys.org/news/2015-03-discovery-demystifies-life-chirality-phenomenon.html

Come on didge, you must know it was God/ Allah who just waved his hand and everything was formed.

nicko wrote:Come on didge, you must know it was God/ Allah  who just waved his hand and everything was formed.

That made me chuckle Nicko, thanks mate.

Excellent.

This touches upon one thing that creationists say that irritates me so much -- that if you don't accept creationism, you think that life or the universe happened "randomly" or by chance ...

There's nothing chance about a system that is governed by observable laws of nature and forces. When you know about gravity, it doesn't seem such a mystery that the Earth orbits the Sun rather than just veering chaotically through space. When you understand genetic mutation and natural selection, you don't need a creator to have all sorts of different living species.