At the NSF iPoLS meeting at Harvard, which JC, Sunny, and Curtis are presenting at, one of the best talks was given by Nigel Goldenfeld (UIUC).

The homochirality of certain biological molecules, especially amino acids in proteins (all L form) and sugars (all D form), has long been a mystery in biology. What processes in early evolution would have led to biological systems using only one form? Hypotheses have included autocatalytic mechanisms as well as even extraterrestrial origins. However, Goldenfeld has recently shown that there’s been a missing ingredient in many of these: the role of noise! Biological systems operate far from equilibrium, and we often find that noise (“stochasticity”) is a beneficial, even critical element, rather than a detrimental background to be minimized. Goldenfeld and colleagues showed that by incorporating two simple principles, self-replication and noise, homochirality can be established.

See a news story here and the original paper here.

Sally Rockey, about to leave NIH, explains indirects in this video: https://youtu.be/1XvVibv2opQ

Use your own judgement for whether her claims about incentives are correct or not.

This is a question we’ve been thinking about a lot. Here is a short article that frames the problem well.

This is a really nice article that JC has his Biophysics students read. It is a fresh perspective from a person who has jumped ship to Biology.

Given the daunting challenges facing theoretical physicists working on new theories of the universe, what should be required of them in terms of proof?

Nature recently explored that very question.