{"id":235742,"date":"2026-04-23T02:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/why-does-life-prefer-one-hand-over-the-other-new-study-points-to-electron-spin"},"modified":"2026-04-23T02:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:34:13","slug":"why-does-life-prefer-one-hand-over-the-other-new-study-points-to-electron-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/why-does-life-prefer-one-hand-over-the-other-new-study-points-to-electron-spin","title":{"rendered":"Why does life prefer one \u2018hand\u2019 over the other? New study points to electron spin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/why-does-life-prefer-one-hand-over-the-other-new-study-points-to-electron-spin.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A team of scientists has identified a new physical mechanism that could help explain one of the most persistent mysteries in science: why life consistently uses one \u201chanded\u201d version of its molecules and not the other. In a new study led by Prof. Yossi Paltiel of the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Hebrew University and Prof. Ron Naaman of the Weizmann Institute, researchers show that electron spin, a fundamental quantum property, can cause mirror-image molecules to behave differently during dynamic processes, even though they are otherwise identical. The work <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.aec9325\" target=\"_blank\">appears<\/a> in Science Advances.<\/p>\n<p>Many molecules essential to life come in two mirror-image forms, known as enantiomers. Chemically, these forms are nearly indistinguishable. Yet in living systems, only one version is typically used: amino acids are almost exclusively one type, while sugars follow the opposite pattern.<\/p>\n<p>This phenomenon, known as <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-05-membranes-brought-chemistry-life-earth.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">homochirality<\/a>, has puzzled scientists for more than a century. Existing explanations have struggled to account for why one specific version was selected globally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of scientists has identified a new physical mechanism that could help explain one of the most persistent mysteries in science: why life consistently uses one \u201chanded\u201d version of its molecules and not the other. In a new study led by Prof. Yossi Paltiel of the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Hebrew University [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,4,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-nanotechnology","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235742","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}