Parity violation and the evolution of biomolecular homochirality

✍ Scribed by William A. Bonner

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 266 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0899-0042
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-636x(2000)12:3<114::aid-chir3>3.0.co;2-n

✦ Synopsis

Parity violation at the level of terrestrial biopolymers, as seen in proteins, DNAs, and RNAs, and parity violation at the level of nuclear processes, as evident in longitudinally polarized ␤-particles and parity-violating energy differences (PVEDs), are discussed and their fundamental importances are emphasized. Attempts to find a causal connection between the unique homochirality of biopolymers and parity violation at the nuclear level, and speculations that the former is a consequence of the latter, are reviewed. Consideration of all lines of evidence leads to the conclusion that there is no substantiation for such a causal connection, and that the two levels of parity violation are entirely independent of each other.