In recent decades, chemists have discovered how to make mirror proteins. Researchers have welded together right-handed amino acids to create mirror versions of natural proteins made by our own bodies.
Mirror proteins behave much like their natural counterparts, with one important difference: They take much longer to break down. That’s because the natural enzymes that normally degrade proteins have shapes that are adapted for attacking left-handed proteins.
They cannot grip mirror proteins and cut them into fragments. Their failure is akin to what happens if you try to twist open a lid from a jar by turning it counterclockwise, only to discover that the threads on the jar twist in the opposite direction.
Chemists are now trying to exploit mirror proteins, hoping they can be used to create long-acting drugs for diseases ranging from H.I.V. to Alzheimer’s.
Could Wreak Havoc
yeah… so what are we giving it before one of these things escapes containment, 5 years? less?
In this timeline? We’re probably looking at this spring for the next bout of mayhem
Hyperbole, any mirror organisms we cook up will be simple and inefficient since they won’t be able to make easy use of the abundance of material that is the wrong chirality for their biochemistry. If they escaped they’d starve to death because all the normal life would be scavenging all the food sources much more effectively.
Not arguing but curious. Could anything that escaped have a chance of becoming invasive?
In theory, but unlikely.
Its main advantage would be evading detection. However, this would work both ways. It wouldn’t have the machinery to use 'normal organic molecules.
The 2nd issue would be its structure. It would be entirely synthetic. It will likely be trimmed down genetically. This gives it far less to work with in evolutionary terms.
Basically, it would be a shadow environment. It would be dependent on whatever material it could find, since no current life would be producing what it needs. It would also be limited in it’s ability to evolve rapidly to cope.
It would be akin to releasing a pregnant chiwawa into an automated car factory. Could it survive, maybe. Could it cause a bit of damage, maybe. Could it multiply out of control, consuming the machines of the factory, VERY unlikely.
Mirror proteins behave much like their natural counterparts, with one important difference: They take much longer to break down. That’s because the natural enzymes that normally degrade proteins have shapes that are adapted for attacking left-handed proteins. They cannot grip mirror proteins and cut them into fragments.
The virtual non-existence of enzymes that can break down right-handed proteins is almost assuredly because their use is vanishingly rare in life on Earth right now. If mirror life did escape the lab and find some way to thrive, normal life would suffer until some normal bacteria happened to mutate and create enzymes that could break it down.
I expect it to be like the Carboniferous period. Trees evolved, and nothing was around that could break down lignin, so they thrived for millions of years and caused devastation to ecosystems of the time. But dead trees represented a lot of untapped raw materials, so eventually other life evolved to break them down.
I would expect the same with mirror life. All else being equal, a few million years of devastation until life evolved ways to fight back. Or humans could dramatically speed that up by genetically engineering normal life (bacteria) with the tools to break down mirror proteins and thus attack mirror cells. It would still be devastating and would completely reshape life on the planet, but it may let humanity squeak through and continue existing.
Im really starting to wonder which great filter is going to wipe us all out at this rate. Leaning towards a when, not an if.
I don’t think we’re even going to make it to a great filter. We’ll probably do ourselves in on a ‘pretty ok’ or ‘not too bad I guess’ filter.
