Why amino acids are left-handed

In my upper elementary school the whole school came together every morning to hear the wise words of priests, the headmaster, the school psychologist, teachers and, it sometimes seemed like, random people the school had grabbed from the streets. In order to teach us something, it was also degreed that every student, in pairs of two students, would need to open the day with something original to say, once during their elementary school career.

And what does this have to do with amino acids? Well, when my turn came, me and a good friend of mine talked about amino acids and how they are predominantly left-handed on our planet. We did this by reading what I think was a Stanislav Lem story that explanied the phenomenon by suggesting, if my memory serves well, that it was the result of two drunken intergalactic travellers, one of whom threw up on our planet, thus introducing Life here. And I think they, in their attempt to cover up the puke, mixed it so that it influenced how amino acids woud form on Earth from ever since.

After delivering this piece of information to the audience, we moved on to play what we called “the latest in computer music”, namely a tape with a Commodore 64 game on it (for those who do not know, if you play one of those tapes you get rather interesting non-static noise not much unlike anything you have never heard). Oh, the things you do when you are thirteen!

In any case, and to finally arrive to my point, it seems that scientists have now finally come closer to suggesting why amino acids are what they are, as reported by New Scientist, and the answer lies in water.