[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

John K Clark wrote:

> One would have thought that the handedness of the molecules of life was just
> a 50 50 luck of the draw, once one got in a slight excess a standard was set
> and there was no reason to change; but there may be more to it than that.
> Amino acids have been found in meteorites and they have the same handedness
> as life too. Most non biological chemical processes produce an equal amount
> of right and left, however if it is exposed to powerful clockwise polarized
> microwaves it produced only right-handed sugars and left-handed amino-acids,
> exactly what we see on Earth and in meteorites. Interestingly there is a
> portion of the Orion Nebula that produces copious amounts of just this sort
> of radiation; there may be a connection, if so the handedness of these
> molecules may not be exactly universal but is the most common form in this
> part of the galaxy.

Does this mean that if we encounter spacefaring aliens, we can still eat them?

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence