The EXTREME Dangers of "Mirror Life" (Artificial Life Forms)

[Chip (OP)]

Source: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/technology-did-you-know-general-science/dangers-mirror-life

The Dangers of Mirror Life
What if we made symmetrically flipped versions of DNA and protein and put them in a bacterium? A team of scientists is saying, “Maybe not.”

Precis:

Take-home message:

- The sugar that makes up the backbone of DNA and the amino acids that get strung together to form proteins have a handedness, in the sense that mirror images of them have not been seen in nature but can be made in a laboratory.

- Scientists are studying whether the kinds of proteins used as therapeutic drugs could stay in the body longer if some of their building blocks were replaced by mirror equivalents.

- An interdisciplinary team of scientists has published a ⚠️ warning about the dangers posed by hypothetical mirror bacteria which could be made in a lab in the next few decades, as these bacteria would likely not be recognized by immune systems and pose a significant risk to human, plant, and animal life !