Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 5, 2026

Imaging Odor-Evoked Activities in the Mouse Olfactory Bulb using Optical Reflectance and Autofluorescence Signals
Published on: October 31, 2011
Dissident remarks on the origin of optical activity. An intrabiological explanation
Abstract:
The attempts to explain the origin of natural optical activity through external, extrabiological, agents, typically ionizing rays, i.e. as a purely incidental effect without deeper significance, have failed and should be abandoned. An alternative, intrabiological, Darwinian, explanation seeks to explain optical activity as a necessary phenomenon in early evolution. This explanation is based on the idea that organisms with the existing stereospecificity initially happened, by chance, to be more efficient than organisms with the opposite stereospecificity on independent grounds that have nothing to do with their stereospecificity. If cells based on L aminoacids are called L cells, it is to be assumed that cosmic bodies carrying L cells are about equally frequent as those carrying D cells.
Related Concept Videos
Measuring Reaction Rates
Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity
Chirality in Nature
UV–Vis Spectroscopy: Woodward–Fieser Rules
IR Absorption Frequency: Delocalization
In IR spectroscopy,...
Photoreceptors and Visual Pathways

