331
‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
331 points (98.3% liked)
World News
39364 readers
2164 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't see any mention in there of Thalidomide being a mirror molecule, do you have a source for that?
Fair. I had thought that article with the scandel would mention it, but apparently doesn't. Only the main article does.
It has two possible configurations:
The Right handed configuration had the desired effects and isn't harmful.
The Left handed mirror caused birth defects.
Oh and the best part is, if you try to make a pure mixture of the right handed version, it can convert to the left handed one in the body!
why the fuck would it be mentioned. thalidomide is synthetic, article is about wrong enantiomer of natural compounds working in a living organism that has unnatural chirality. that teratogenic effect of thalidomide was figured out and is now used in anticancer treatments. it's a tool, and if you use it right it can be useful. that thing in article is highly speculative as of now and making any component would be hideously expensive anyway
Correct. It's also a much simpler organic molecule than any of the proteins they are talking about creating.
Man, you ain't gotta be rude.
I meant the article I linked to the Thalidomide scandal. I was surprised that chirality wasn't mentioned even once in the wiki article about it causing birth defects, considering it's chirality was a key factor in that scandal.
I know it wouldn't be in the OP article because they're only minorly related instances, but my point was tjat we already know what mirroring even a simple compound can do to living things, nevermind complex proteins and entire organisms.
And IMO, using arguably the single most widely known instance of mirror chemicals gone wrong to make that point is perfectly valid.
Yes, but like any tool, if there's no safeguards, it will could do unimaginable damage (which is also why I used Thalidomide as an example, as it inspired literally tonnes of safeguards post-scandel). Like GMOs can be dangerous as is, but at least in most instances it's only the living organism itself that's dangerous. With mirroring, any part of that organism could be dangerous to normal lifeforms, so even sterilised mirror waste could be dangerous