4 ms·
Lateralisation is extremely common, snails are famously lateralised leading some of their predators to be such (they have jaws curving to one side, to better fo
by masklinn 2y ago
Lateralisation is extremely common, snails are famously lateralised leading some of their predators to be such (they have jaws curving to one side, to better follow the shell). Snail shells mostly spiral to the right (90% IIRC, about the same as right handedness in humans) but in areas where lateralised predators are very common left-handed snails have a much higher presence, up to 30%.
- fragmede 2y agoMolecules have a handed-ness. everything from there on up is doomed to have that problem somewhere.
- dahart 2y agoWhy, what makes you think there’s any connection? Molecule handedness doesn’t affect animal handedness, they are completely independent things with completely independent mechanisms, and the materials in between animal and molecule (shell, bone, skin, nerves, vasculature, etc.) don’t have any known handedness. We already know that not everything has that problem.
- aziaziazi 2y agoI think they just see asymmetry as a parent of handednes. Bones and skin and so are not symmetric, as probably anything in the universe (but some specific molecules, atoms and crystals?)
- pablobaz 2y agoIt goes deeper than that. Fundamental forces have chirality. This was a little controversial when first discovered.