New estimates of asymmetric decomposition of racemic mixtures by natural β-radiation sources

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Abstract
The Vester–Ulbricht hypothesis suggests that the chirality of biological molecules originates from the β-radiolysis of prebiotic racemic mixtures1. Despite the inconclusiveness of past investigations2–4, recent calculations5,6 have shown that β particles, because of their helicity, radiolyse L- and D-enantiomers at slightly different rates, the asymmetry, AR, being predicted to be 10−11 (new experimental tests7,8 give |AR||ηF|, in accordance with the V–U hypothesis.