In article ,
Martin Brown writes:
I thought there was a project underway to send a small stable isotope
mass spectrometer to look for any variation of deltaC13 or deltaS34 in
the rocks that would be indicative of life. Life preferentially
concentrates the lighter isotopes making inorganic materials have a
higher concentration of the heavier isotopes. eg.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...9890016972.pdf
Distinguishing between life and abiotic chemistry is the reason for
doing _chiral_ labeled release. Life should prefer one enantiomer
over the other, while abiotic processes should show little or no
preference.
Anybody know when or why 'stereoisomers' became 'enantiomers'?
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