4 ms·
Mirror life is a scientific fantasy leading to a dangerous reality
- pmdulaney 1y agoWow. If you thought AI was a disaster waiting to happen, read this.
- gus_massa 1y agoOld discussion from another source https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408361 In my opinion the ridk is exaggerated. A lot. My cherry picked comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408731 > no. antibodies will work just fine on a d-protein and one of their mechanisms of killing is to generate ozone, which is an achiral molecule. there is currently ~no risk because generating mirror life is such a monumental task. we dont have a full biological bootstrap sequence currently. [...] and the expense of mirror dna monomers is... i can't even imagine. you'd probably bankrupt a midsize nation on that. [...] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42415682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42415682 (it's a good comment in spite it's grey) > It would still have antigenic properties, just not the ones we are familiar with, because antigens are proteins or proteins bound to sugars. Both have "left" vs "right" variants. > It can't eat any ordinary food, except simple fats. Common proteins and sugars won't fit it's enzymes. [...]. It also means it can't attack and decompose our tissues. With only simple lipids as food, it would need to take all Nitrogen from the atmosphere or inorganic compounds,[...]