Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai(www.nobelprize.org)
78 pointsby sasvari3 hours ago6 comments
  • PowerElectronix44 minutes ago
    >Other than life itself, no one had achieved this feat.

    Yeah, when you put it that way it sounds pretty impresive.

  • mhrmsnan hour ago
    Cool, brings back some memories from grad school. Always found these types of reactions with self-reenforcing quite interesting.

    Reminds me of another paper where just stirring a solution or not would determine the chirality of crystals formed and gives an idea how highly chiral environments can arise from "nothing":

    Chiral symmetry breaking in sodium chlorate crystallizaton https://doi.org/10.1126/science.250.4983.975

  • jacob_rezi2 hours ago
    Related to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror-image_life
    • mapmeldan hour ago
      Yes, this sounds like a situation where progress in that field may have led them to go back and give more credit to the original experiments going in that direction
    • fabian2kan hour ago
      Mirror-image life obviously depends on chirality. But chirality is very relevant without it. It is a fundamental aspect of chemistry (and biology).
    • vincent-udenan hour ago
      Yes, that should be evident from the first paragraph of each article.
  • WillAdamsan hour ago
    This is a plot point in one of my most favourite science fiction novels by Roger Zelazny... bit of a spoiler, so ROT13:

    _Qbbejnlf va gur Fnaq_

    which still has my favourite life situation for a protagonist (room, board, tuition and generous stipend so long as he attends his uncle's alma mater until such time as he graduates....)

  • m12kan hour ago
    See also this discussion about this in the sci-fi series The Expanse, where a planet has bi-chiral organisms (able to use both versions of these molecules): https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/i4e187/a_small_...
  • zshn2 hours ago
    Chirality is quite interesting!