bane_killgrind

bane_killgrind t1_j9e4d6k wrote

Reply to According to a new study, researchers propose a novel theory about how the molecules of life may have developed a preferred chirality, or “handedness.” Understanding more about how the concept influences our living beings could help scientists develop drugs to fight molecular disease, like cancer. by Impossible_Cookie596

So this concept of chirality isn't adequately explained, so I'm going to give a shot at that.

Most of the visualizations we have of molecules are flat, and so they offer an incomplete picture of how they exist in real life and the texture they have. Some long molecule is likely to be bent or rotated along certain bonds because of the individual charges of the atomic components that it's made up by.

Some forces attract, and other forces repel, a position that balances those forces could be straight or very bendy.

Let's pretend a sheet of paper is some molecule. It has a side A and a side B. The stiff surface of the paper offers an internal repelling force and the edges have an attractive force. If you cut a triangle out of the sheet, (a different shape is a different molecule) the attraction in the edges pulls the cutout into a cone. But now we need to ask, is side A the outside of the cone or is side B? It could be either, and the way to describe this distinction between two otherwise identical molecules is it's chirality.

5