Asri-unix.1384
net.space
utzoo!decvax!cca!McLure@SRI-KL@sri-unix
Mon May  3 00:19:26 1982
left-handed amino acids discovered in meteorite
From: Stuart McLure Cracraft <MCLURE SRI-KL AT>
!a084  0712  30 Apr 82
AM-Amino Acids,250
Amino Acids Found In Meteorite That Crashed In Australia
   PHOENIX, Ariz. (AP) - Amino acids - a building block of proteins -
have been found in fragments from a meteorite that crashed in
Australia, a team of researchers report.
   Bartholomew Nagy, a geochemist at the University of Arizona in
Tucson, reported in a paper published in the British journal, Nature,
that the fragments contained the kind of amino acids that most
commonly occur in living things.
   The co-author of the paper was Michael Engel of the Carnegie
Institution in Washington.
   Nagy said he and Engel ''are not talking about extraterrestrial
life.'' But a leading astrogeologist, Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, said the
research ''certainly supports the idea that the starting material''
was brought to Earth by meteorites.
   Nagy said the specimens from the fragments contained mostly
''left-handed'' amino acids.
   Amino acids have turned up previously in meteorites, but Nagy said
most of them contained mostly ''right-handed'' amino acids.
   Nagy said ''almost all'' amino acids in living organisms are
left-handed.
   Left-handed structures turn polarized light to the left, and
right-handed structures turn it to the right.
   Nagy said he and Engel found the amino acids in the Murchison
meteorite, which crashed onto Victoria in eastern Austrailia on Sept.
20, 1969.
   Other researchers had looked for left-handed amino acids in the
Murchison fragments, but Nagy said he and Engel were able to find them
by examining a larger specimen with geochemical techniques only
recently perfected.
   Nagy said the researchers took special steps to ensure that the
specimen was not affected by earthly contaminants .

ap-ny-04-30 1012EST
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