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Aliens' Chirality Prevents Long Stay on Earth

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• Aliens' Chirality Prevents Long Stay on Earth

• Aliens' Chirality Prevents Long Stay on Earth

  DrTonyMcCaffrey > June 30th, 2021, 08:38 AM

  We humans all get energy out of D-glucose. But, our proteins cannot deal with its asymmetrical cousin L-glucose. Just as our left hand cannot shake hands with our right hand, aliens could very well work with L-glucose and thus, they would not be able to find food on Earth (D-glucose).
  
  Link to relevant article.

• RE: Aliens' Chirality Prevents Long Stay on Earth

  Michael > July 1st, 2021, 10:27 AM

  I don't know why, but I always thought Sucralose (an artificial sweetener best known as Splenda) was that "left-handed sugar", but it's not. It's made from real sugar and is chemically altered. I only know this now because I read WebMD's article "What To Know about Sucralose" after reading the article you link to above.
  
  So that does kind of invalidate all alien-invasion stories - in that none of them ever have the aliens check to see if we are compatible with their metabolisms. Crash-landing on Earth would be like being trapped on 1 of 2 desert islands: one that has plenty of food and one that is completely barren.

• RE: Aliens' Chirality Prevents Long Stay on Earth

  Alvin Eriol > July 5th, 2021, 03:33 PM

  Larry Niven wrote or co-wrote a story or 2 in which Earth colonists farmed on worlds whose native biota were nutritively incompatible. None I recall in "Known Space", but at least one in the "Leshy Circuit" ("Flare Time"), wherein it was remarked certain small bugs who swarmed during flares would attack the colonists crops then die of it after they'd wrought destruction. Presumably chirality of peptides and sugars and suchlike could have been involved tho Niven didn't elaborate. It wasn't really a major plot point.

• RE: Aliens' Chirality Prevents Long Stay on Earth

  Michael > July 5th, 2021, 03:43 PM

  Alvin, you may have just described a weapon of mass destruction that could be engineered here on Earth. If an ecosystem could be engineered in a carefully controlled environment, such insects could be used to cause famines anywhere in the world.
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