[Canofbier]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Explain...

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Certain molecules possess a trait called chirality, or handedness. The chemical formula is the same, but one branch is a mirror image that you can't superimpose on the other molecule (think about your right and left hands). This usually doesn't affect much chemistry, except with other chiral molecules.

For example, you cannot have a peptide chain unless all of the amino acids are of the same handedness, because an S-amino acid won't be able to form a chain of bonds with two D-amino acids (S, sinister, means left and D, dextro, means right). Without those chains, you don't have proteins, thus, no life.

No one knows why this happened. More than likely, it was just a quirk of genetic randomness.

And maybe it doesn't need to be said, Virus, but the fact that we see those amino acids unlike the ones from Earth implies that life (or at least the building blocks of it) may have existed wherever that meteor originated from.

Whack indeed.