Yet another Hacker News

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai

62 points sasvari 2 hours ago 9 comments

jacob_rezi 1 hour ago | parent

vincent-uden 55 minutes ago | parent

Yes, that should be evident from the first paragraph of each article.

fabian2k 41 minutes ago | parent

Mirror-image life obviously depends on chirality. But chirality is very relevant without it. It is a fundamental aspect of chemistry (and biology).

mapmeld 31 minutes ago | parent

Yes, this sounds like a situation where progress in that field may have led them to go back and give more credit to the original experiments going in that direction

zshn 1 hour ago | parent

Chirality is quite interesting!

m12k 54 minutes ago | parent

See also this discussion about this in the sci-fi series The Expanse, where a planet has bi-chiral organisms (able to use both versions of these molecules): https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/i4e187/a_small_...

WillAdams 52 minutes ago | parent

This is a plot point in one of my most favourite science fiction novels by Roger Zelazny... bit of a spoiler, so ROT13:

_Qbbejnlf va gur Fnaq_

which still has my favourite life situation for a protagonist (room, board, tuition and generous stipend so long as he attends his uncle's alma mater until such time as he graduates....)

mhrmsn 33 minutes ago | parent

Cool, brings back some memories from grad school. Always found these types of reactions with self-reenforcing quite interesting.

Reminds me of another paper where just stirring a solution or not would determine the chirality of crystals formed and gives an idea how highly chiral environments can arise from "nothing":

Chiral symmetry breaking in sodium chlorate crystallizaton https://doi.org/10.1126/science.250.4983.975

PowerElectronix 10 minutes ago | parent

>Other than life itself, no one had achieved this feat.

Yeah, when you put it that way it sounds pretty impresive.