Chirality

Nature generally doesn't care whether it makes a left- or right-handed molecule.

If you make a bunch of amino acids in a lab experiment, you'll more or less end up with the same number of left- and right-handed molecules. There is no preferred state in nature for one or the other.

A racemic mixture is one that has equal numbers of left- and right-handed molecules.

It's pretty interesting, then, that all of life's amino acids are L-amino acids (left-handed).

And most biologically important carbohydrates are right-handed.

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