From the point of view of a newly created colony of opposite-handed bacteria, it would be facing an entire planet of really well established mirror life.
Mirror species can eat the local species, so they have it easy.
Mirror life can only use the fats and a few amino acids of the normal life. All sugars have chirality so they would need some enzymes to east their own mirrored sugars and another set of enzymes to eat normal sugars. Also, most amino acids have chirality and they would have to reverse them or make their own.
So even if someone waste a few gazillions dollars to make mirror life, it would not be able to eat most normal food.
It does actually, because it implies it fought and lost that battle the first time.
Now, with L-amino life everywhere it would have an even bigger starting problem.
We see this with extremophiles: organisms which can grow in nuclear cooling ponds full extremely badly when transplanted to nutrient rich environments with other, less capable organisms.
Please future humans, do not build mirror life.
Thanks.
From the point of view of a newly created colony of opposite-handed bacteria, it would be facing an entire planet of really well established mirror life.
Ever heard of invasive species?
That's the problem. Mirror life may not be a problem for the biosphere in the long run but it could totally be a problem for humans in the short run.
Mirror species can eat the local species, so they have it easy.
Mirror life can only use the fats and a few amino acids of the normal life. All sugars have chirality so they would need some enzymes to east their own mirrored sugars and another set of enzymes to eat normal sugars. Also, most amino acids have chirality and they would have to reverse them or make their own.
So even if someone waste a few gazillions dollars to make mirror life, it would not be able to eat most normal food.
yes it seems unlikely that it would be able to outcompete everything already on earth
if it did I would have thought it would have appeared in the past 5 billion years or so
> if it did I would have thought it would have appeared in the past 5 billion years or so
It may have appeared and been outcompeted. That doesn’t suggest its (artificial) reintroduction would again be outcompeted
It does actually, because it implies it fought and lost that battle the first time.
Now, with L-amino life everywhere it would have an even bigger starting problem.
We see this with extremophiles: organisms which can grow in nuclear cooling ponds full extremely badly when transplanted to nutrient rich environments with other, less capable organisms.
Hopefully mirror antibiotics are earlier in the tech tree than mirror life.