>>>Alright then... I have a science fiction question for you then, Jeremy...
since the two different DNA systems are totally unrecognizable to one
another, could a human 'digest' a nonterrestial plant? Imagine the
advertising:
Probably all of you know this already, but an interesting point is that the
building blocks of proteins, the amino acids, can take two different forms
(called "D" and "L"). They are like mirror images in their
three-dimensional structure. Presumably a cell could build a metabolism
around either "D" or "L" amino acids, but not both. Terrestrial organisms
use L-amino acids (except for some unusual molecules). To most organism,
D-amino acids are poisonous. If we were to eat a plant from a D-amino acid
world, we would have something worse than a bad case of indigestion!
==
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