Why is the heart slightly on the left side of the body for most people? Why is DNA almost always a right-handed helix? Same with alpha helices, the building blocks of proteins. Chirality, or ...

How do left-handed and right-handed molecules differ? Researchers at ETH Zurich are using a new imaging method to visualize what was previously only measurable as an average, opening up new ...

Chirality—often described as "handedness"—is a fundamental property of nature, underlying the behavior of molecules ranging from DNA to pharmaceuticals. While chemists have long known how to separate ...

Chirality -- a geometric property that allows molecules to exist in two distinct forms that are chemically identical but are 3D mirror images of each other, like a right and left hand -- has a ...

For the first time, chemists at ETH Zurich have successfully used extremely short, rotating flashes of light to measure and manipulate the different movements of electrons in mirror-image molecules.

Why do spearmint and caraway seeds smell so differently, although their main scent molecules are almost identical? Why can a medicine save lives, while its mirror image is ineffective or even harmful?

A new imaging technique uses circularly polarised light to visualise chiral structures, improving analysis of biological samples, materials, and active substances. (Nanowerk News) Why do spearmint and ...

Chemists fill a major gap in origin-of-life theories. Molecules often have a structural asymmetry called chirality, which means they can appear in alternative, mirror-image versions, akin to the left ...

The entirely new structure of light could help drug developers see their work more clearly than before. An entirely new structure of light is helping to measure chirality in molecules more accurately ...