Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 428
CHIRALITY OR SIDEDNESS IN NATURE. Another example relates to the influence of chirality on life of a rather sinister nature. This came to light in 1963 when a drug, thalidomide, was introduced by a pharmaceutical company for the cure of morning sickness in pregnant women. Many were cured, but for many others it proved disastrous. Horrible congenital defects were found in the babies born to some mothers treated by the same drug. A subsequent intensive research revealed that the pharmaceutical company which manufactured thalidomide had inadvertently manufactured two types of thalidomide compounds of the same formula. While the molecules of one type spun in one direction, those of the second type spun in the other. While one type cured morning sickness without producing any adverse effect on the embryo, the other type produced the most horrible congenital deformities instead of curing the morning sickness. The most profound side-effect was the deformities of the lower limbs among the infants born under its influence. . Another intriguing case of the detection of the spin and the preference of one spin over the other is found at the most fundamental level of life. Although there were several hundred amino acids freely available in the primordial soup from which such proteins were created as made the fundamental bricks of life (DNA and RNA), 'nature' selected only twenty amino acids out of them and they were all left spinning!. In the case of selecting molecules for building sugars however, the choice was reversed. The molecules of all the four different forms of sugars responsible for the provision of energy to all forms of life are, without exception, right spinning. This means that all natural sources of sugar available to life, like sugar cane, beet root, fruit, etc. , manufacture sugar consisting only of right spinning molecules. 417