{"id":149724,"date":"2022-11-08T17:24:29","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T23:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/scientists-tap-into-biologys-mirror-dimension-to-create-ultra-strong-synthetic-rna"},"modified":"2022-11-08T17:24:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T23:24:29","slug":"scientists-tap-into-biologys-mirror-dimension-to-create-ultra-strong-synthetic-rna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/scientists-tap-into-biologys-mirror-dimension-to-create-ultra-strong-synthetic-rna","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Tap Into Biology\u2019s \u2018Mirror Dimension\u2019 to Create Ultra-Strong Synthetic RNA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-tap-into-biologys-mirror-dimension-to-create-ultra-strong-synthetic-rna2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Even more daring, biology\u2019s \u201cmirror dimension\u201d may be a springboard to engineer synthetic life forms that exist outside of nature, but are literal reflections of ourselves. To rephrase: building a mirror-image version of biology means rewriting the fundamental operating system of life.<\/p>\n<p>Sound a bit too sci-fi? Let me explain. Similar to how our left hand can\u2019t wear a right-hand glove, the building blocks of life\u2014DNA, RNA, and proteins\u2014are etched into specific 3D structures. Flip them around, as if reflected by a mirror, and they can no longer function inside the body. Scientists aren\u2019t yet sure why nature picked just one shape out of two potential mirror images. But they\u2019re ready to test it out.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.abm0646\">A new study<\/a> in <i>Science<\/i> made strides by reworking parts of the body\u2019s protein-making machine into its mirror image. At the center is a structure called the ribosome, which intakes genetic code and translates it into amino acids\u2014the Lego blocks for all proteins. The ribosome is an iconic cellular architecture, fused from two main molecular components: RNA and proteins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even more daring, biology\u2019s \u201cmirror dimension\u201d may be a springboard to engineer synthetic life forms that exist outside of nature, but are literal reflections of ourselves. To rephrase: building a mirror-image version of biology means rewriting the fundamental operating system of life. Sound a bit too sci-fi? Let me explain. Similar to how our left [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}