Finding supports model on cause of DNA's right-handed double helix
Tom Simons, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln
New research by University of Nebraska-Lincoln physicists and published in the Sept. 12 online edition of Physical Review Letters now gives support to a long-posited but never-proven hypothesis that electrons in cosmic rays—which are mostly left-handed—preferentially destroyed left-handed precursors of DNA on the primordial Earth. Joan M. Dreiling and Timothy J. Their experiment proved the principle underlying the Vester-Ulbricht hypothesis that the primarily left-handed spinning electrons in cosmic rays could have preferentially destroyed left-handed precursors of DNA, leaving only right-handed DNA. The sculpture illustrates DNA’s right-handed double helix. We have done several different checks with our experiment and I am totally confident that the asymmetry exists, Dreiling said.