Most of the biological chain is homochiral in one direction, I don’t really see how introducing a left-handed organism into a system that is dominated by right-handed chirality would even matter…. It feels like if you found out about reverse thread screws and then started saying it was going to bring us back to the dark ages.
Reverse threads screws are a thing, for specific applications like acetylene and bike pedals, but since 99.999% of our hardware and processes both above and below the level of bolt relies on one way of doing things, the clockwise bolt market is never going to be taken over by the lefties.
Without a system where they can be at home, reverse cells will just die, right?
Izawwlgood on
Pretty click bait title.
Magnanimous-Gormage on
Just like in The Expanse. The reversed molecules have many possibilities for example reversed sugar tastes sweet but cant be used for energy.
Frosty-Comfort6699 on
i don’t like current US politics but wiping them off the planet seems a bit dramatic
Regurgitator001 on
Please hurry up. Human annihilation is taking too damn long!
paulsteinway on
Can we get an ETA?
PoolNervous2484 on
Hurry up!
forceghost187 on
Cat’s Cradle
sweetnsourgrapes on
“Scientific American” will be an oxymoron soon.
Zenside on
Good. This dream can’t end soon enough.
milagr05o5 on
No, researchers are not
Sir-Kyle-Of-Reddit on
Is there a gofundme for the research?
Stumeister_69 on
“The researchers turn to engineered mirror bacteria—single cells made of reversed molecules—for the job. Bacterial factories aren’t a far-fetched idea. Today, for instance, pharmaceutical companies use bacteria to manufacture synthetic insulin for diabetics.”
This was predicted in Michael Crichton’s – Prey book. Neat.
Joeking1986 on
In the article the author mentions they don’t know what the illness caused by a mirror bacteria would look:
“What this strange infection would look like precisely is unclear, but the expected result is sepsislike inflammation and death.”
I don’t understand the body’s biome near well enough to grasp the danger here. Would the issue be the mirror bacteria is “eating” our natural body flora/fauna? Would it be “eating” us directly?
A quick google tells me sepsis is the body’s overreaction to infection and that the body starts damaging itself. But if the mirror bacteria don’t trigger an immune response how then could one become septic?
In the author’s opening scenario, where a researcher falls ill after a couple days, what would her symptoms be? They clearly stated shortly before there would be no immune response so ill fated researcher wouldn’t spike a fever right? I am kinda of imagining the body becoming clogged with runaway mirror bacteria. Could a ball of rogue mirror bacteria in an artery cause a stroke?
18 Comments
Sign me up!
Sweet, sweet oblivion.
Mirror life!
Most of the biological chain is homochiral in one direction, I don’t really see how introducing a left-handed organism into a system that is dominated by right-handed chirality would even matter…. It feels like if you found out about reverse thread screws and then started saying it was going to bring us back to the dark ages.
Reverse threads screws are a thing, for specific applications like acetylene and bike pedals, but since 99.999% of our hardware and processes both above and below the level of bolt relies on one way of doing things, the clockwise bolt market is never going to be taken over by the lefties.
Without a system where they can be at home, reverse cells will just die, right?
Pretty click bait title.
Just like in The Expanse. The reversed molecules have many possibilities for example reversed sugar tastes sweet but cant be used for energy.
i don’t like current US politics but wiping them off the planet seems a bit dramatic
Please hurry up. Human annihilation is taking too damn long!
Can we get an ETA?
Hurry up!
Cat’s Cradle
“Scientific American” will be an oxymoron soon.
Good. This dream can’t end soon enough.
No, researchers are not
Is there a gofundme for the research?
“The researchers turn to engineered mirror bacteria—single cells made of reversed molecules—for the job. Bacterial factories aren’t a far-fetched idea. Today, for instance, pharmaceutical companies use bacteria to manufacture synthetic insulin for diabetics.”
This was predicted in Michael Crichton’s – Prey book. Neat.
In the article the author mentions they don’t know what the illness caused by a mirror bacteria would look:
“What this strange infection would look like precisely is unclear, but the expected result is sepsislike inflammation and death.”
I don’t understand the body’s biome near well enough to grasp the danger here. Would the issue be the mirror bacteria is “eating” our natural body flora/fauna? Would it be “eating” us directly?
A quick google tells me sepsis is the body’s overreaction to infection and that the body starts damaging itself. But if the mirror bacteria don’t trigger an immune response how then could one become septic?
In the author’s opening scenario, where a researcher falls ill after a couple days, what would her symptoms be? They clearly stated shortly before there would be no immune response so ill fated researcher wouldn’t spike a fever right? I am kinda of imagining the body becoming clogged with runaway mirror bacteria. Could a ball of rogue mirror bacteria in an artery cause a stroke?
Why