Meteorite, desert soil and AI: New electrical method takes aim at hunt for alien life

What happened

Meteorite, desert soil and AI: New electrical method takes aim at hunt for alien life, according to Interesting Engineering. Researchers in Japan have developed an electrical method that tells mirror-image forms of amino acids apart one molecule at a time, a step toward compact instruments that could one day help search for signs of life beyond Earth. The work, from Osaka University, pairs a nanoscale gap between gold electrodes with artificial intelligence.

Why handedness matters Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, come in two mirror-image forms called L and D. Living organisms use almost exclusively L-form amino acids, while their sugars are in the D-form.

Nonliving chemical and physical processes produce both amino acid forms in equal amounts, making the L/D ratio a potential biosignature. The authors stress it is one clue and should be weighed with other evidence.