Earth and Planetary Sciences News
How calcium may have unlocked the origins of life’s molecular asymmetry
Polarisation microscope image of calcium tartrate crystals Polarisation microscopy analyses reveal that tartrate in the calcium tartrate crystals had no chirality preference. Credit: Chen Chen
A new study led by researchers at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Institute of Science Tokyo has uncovered a surprising role for calcium in shaping life’s earliest molecular structures. Their findings suggest that calcium ions can selectively influence how primitive polymers form, shedding light on a long-standing mystery: how life’s molecules came to prefer a single “handedness” (chirality).
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