‘Chirality’ refers to a property of molecules that are available in two distinct varieties – a ‘right-handed’ and ‘left-handed’ type. At first look, this idea might look like an esoteric bit of information related solely to lab chemists. Nonetheless, the actual fact takes on a brand new that means when you think about that, whereas chemical reactions have a tendency to provide a 50:50 chiral combine of those molecules, the constructing blocks of life are available in a single (or homochiral) type – and certainly should for all times as we all know it to function. That’s all to say, on the core of the origin of life is a thriller of homochirality.
This movie from the science documentary collection Chemistry Shorts explores how the groundbreaking experiments of two Harvard College scientists, S Furkan Ozturk and Dimitar Sasselov, might have cracked the case of how the ‘prebiotic soup’ generated homochirality – and in doing so, made life potential. Balancing the chemical nitty-gritty of all of it with the bigger existential questions their work probes, the movie makes for a riveting dive into a possible breakthrough on one among science’s most enduring mysteries.
