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Science 15 June 2001:
Vol. 292. no. 5524, pp. 2021 - 2022
DOI: 10.1126/science.1062070
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Perspectives

CHEMISTRY:
A New Twist on Chirality

Ben L. Feringa

Ever since Pasteur, chemists have tried to induce chirality in molecules without the intervention of any preexisting molecular chirality, for example, through stirring. But indications of induced chirality through stirring are usually discarded as irreproducible or as artifacts. In his Perspective, Feringa highlights the report by Ribó et al., who show that the formation of chiral assemblies of molecules can indeed be induced by stirring. The results may have implications for the origin of the single handedness of biomolecules.

The author is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands. E-mail: b.l.feringa{at}chem.rug.nl

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The origin of life and the left-handed amino-Acid excess: the furthest heavens and the deepest seas?.
G. Goodman and M. E. Gershwin (2006)
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