Abstract
The Vester–Ulbricht hypothesis suggests that the chirality of biological molecules originates from the β-radiolysis of prebiotic racemic mixtures1. Despite the inconclusiveness of past investigations2–4, recent calculations5,6 have shown that β particles, because of their helicity, radiolyse L- and D-enantiomers at slightly different rates, the asymmetry, AR, being predicted to be 10−11 (new experimental tests7,8 give |AR|<2×10−9). Before this, the size of the radiolysis-induced chiral polarization, ηR (η ≡ (nL − nD)/(nL + nD) where nL and nD are the numbers of L and D molecules present), was estimated9–12 for different values of AR; according to Keszthelyi et al.9–11, if |AR|∼10−11 |ηR| can never exceed the chiral polarization, |ηF|, produced by statistical fluctuations, thus invalidating the V–U hypothesis. Here we re-examine the major assumptions on which these calculations were based and find that several overly restrictive conditions were imposed, which, when relaxed, allow the condition |ηR|>|ηF|, in accordance with the V–U hypothesis.
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Hegstrom, R., Rich, A. & Van House, J. New estimates of asymmetric decomposition of racemic mixtures by natural β-radiation sources. Nature 313, 391–392 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/313391a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/313391a0
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