• Question: what is your favourite fact about science?

    Asked by team520foes on 21 Mar 2025.
    • Photo: Andreea Claudia Toma

      Andreea Claudia Toma answered on 21 Mar 2025:

      One of my favourite facts about chemistry is the concept of chirality. Chirality refers to the geometric property where a molecule cannot be superimposed on its mirror image. This is similar to how left and right hands are mirror images but not identical. Chiral molecules are essential in chemistry and biology because they can have drastically different effects in biological systems. For example, one enantiomer (one of the two mirror images) of a drug might be therapeutically beneficial, while the other could be harmful or inactive. This has profound implications in the pharmaceutical industry, where the correct enantiomer must be identified and used to maximize efficacy and minimize side effects.

    • Photo: Rachael Eggleston

      Rachael Eggleston answered on 21 Mar 2025:

      My favorite fact is that all the variety of life on earth comes from differences in our DNA. In case you don’t know, DNA is a molecule (set of atoms, sort of like Lego!) that forms a pattern of four bases (‘pieces,’ if you’d like): A, C, T, and G. From specific arrangements of these four bases in a certain order (ex. AATCCGCTAAAGCTCGA but *way* longer), you get people or butterflies or bacteria or oak trees or anything, anything else living!

    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 26 Mar 2025:

      Little things like the way molecules arrange themselves of dusty surface in space to make ice films can influence how fast stars for in the cold, dense environments that make up stellar nurseries. Something on the molecular scale controls a process at stellar scales!

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