back to article NASA brews better test to find ET in cosmic cocktails

Space agency NASA has created a test 10,000 times more sensitive than current technology to detect signs of life beyond Earth. Scientists hope to use the enhanced "capillary electrophoresis", an improvement on a three-decade old technique, in explorations of liquid-laden locales such as Europa where the test could help detect …

  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    One of those small, tough, building blocks in building a system to search for life.

    Excellent work.

    Handedness is important in biology.

    1. Julz

      Re: One of those small, tough, building blocks in building a system to search for life.

      In alien biology?

      1. Filippo Silver badge

        Re: One of those small, tough, building blocks in building a system to search for life.

        My (very wild) guess would be that aminoacids created by non-biological processes can be expected to have an even mix of chirality, while aminoacids synthesized by life forms are likely have a dominant chirality. This should be true even if it turns out that there are bi-chiral aliens, because the two forms would not have the same function and so would be unlikely to have the same concentration.

  2. charlieboywoof

    But...........................

    .................................At the rate they keep stopping ISS live stream

    Just saying

  3. Christoph

    "the new test is tuned to detect left handed amino acids"

    And not right-handed? That's assuming either that the alien life and Earth life are derived from the same original source, or that there's something that drives life to use left handed only.

    It could be that it was pure chance that the First Replicator was left handed, in which case right handed is just as likely.

    1. Muscleguy
      Boffin

      Unless there is some benefit to biological systems to use left chiral molecules in preference to right. AFAIK we do not know whether it is an historical accident or a mark of something fundamental. I suspect we will either have to create artificial life which uses right chiral molecules (a difficult but not impossible task) or find another genesis and see what the life there uses.

      This is one of the fundamental questions that another genesis would address.

    2. Primus Secundus Tertius

      In an equilibrium system the two chiralities are likely to be equally probable. But Life is not an equilibrium system, it is a steady-state non-equilibrium system (SSNES). Or what my physics lecturers called a "dissipative system".

      It is easy to imagine abiotic systems that are SSNES. For example, a steady stream of water (high pressure, high temperature) through volcanic rocks in a chemically reducing environment. My question is whether in such a SSNES one chirality could come to dominate.

      Suitable experiments are needed.

  4. VeganVegan
    Pint

    Too narrow a focus?

    Bacterial cell walls (peptidoglycan) consist of, in part, D-amino acids.

    Perhaps they should also test some bacterial cultures, and see if they find any signature of life.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like