Scientists Discover Interstellar ... Sugar?

Vicnice writes: "The discovery of simple sugars in the cosmos raises the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe a notch or two. Specifically, the sugar molecules were located in a gas cloud near the center of our galaxy. From the National Radio Astronomy Observatory release: "The scientists identified glycolaldehyde by detecting six frequencies of radio emission in what is termed the millimeter-wavelength region of the electromagnetic spectrum -- a region between more-familiar microwaves and infrared radiation."

Comments

Re:A side thought - HOAX

[orpheus]

Forgive me Lubeck Streyer (aka 'lubie-babie', when I was in molecular bio) and St. Lehninger, for the sins I am about to commit...

I really feel I ought to explain what they are calling 'sugars' here -- it's a biochemical term that (very crudely) boils down to 'a chain of carbons with water attached' -- only the 'water' has broken into two parts ( HOH => H + OH ) and these two parts connect to the carbon, instead of each other. you can think of a 'sugar' as a chain of carbon groups that look like HO-C-H and are connected to each other at by the carbons like this:
......._____. .......H............
....../.....| ....HO-C-H..___. .....__.......
...HO-C-H...| ........\../...| ... /..\......
...HO-C-H...| ......HO-C.....| ....\__/\.....
...HO-C-H...| ......HO-C-H...| .........\__..
...HO-C-H...| ......HO-C-H...| ........./..\.
...HO-C-H...| ......HO-C-H...| .........\__/.
....H-C-OH..| .......H-C-OH..| ..............
......\_____| ..........\____| ...Table Sugar

The big loop just indicates that the carbons are generally in a ring. The second figure indicates that not all of the carbons are always in the ring. The last HO-C-H group is backwards to indicate that major difference between many sugars of the same size is simply whether each -OH group points up or down when we lay the ring flat. "up-up-down-up-up-up" is one sugar, but "up-up-up-down-up-up" is different sugar (they may seem like reflections, but trust me, in a 3-D ring, they aren't)

The 'well-known sugars' (most of which you've never heard of) have carbon chain lengths from 3 carbons (e.g. triose) up to seven carbons (e.g. sedheptulose). However, the 'familiar sugars' are usually based on a six carbon (glucose, fructose, etc.) or five-carbon (ribose) ring. Table sugar (sucrose) consists of *two* six carbon sugars connected together. Chains of sugars longer than two can be very 'un-sugar-like' -- cellulose (wood fiber) is nothing but long linked chains of glucose (blood sugar) while glycogen (a stored fuel in your liver) is also just branched chains of glucose, but is very different physically.

Glucose (blood sugar) or fructose (fruit sugar) are C6-H12-O6. Table sugar (sucrose) is C12-H22-O12. In space conditions, it might be useful to think of carbon chain lengths as being like stacked blocks -- the kind children play with. Generally stacking two blocks is easy, but six is more than three times as hard (it tends to fall apart easily)

The so-called "sugar" they found in space is two carbons long (glycoaldehyde C2-H4-O2) and is very unlike the six-carbon (okay, 5-7) sugars we usually think of. In biochemistry, it isn't generally called a sugar at all. Three carbons was a sort of bottom limit to be sugar like, because the 'ends' often have an extra hydrogen, and a two carbon 'sugar' would be nothing but 'end' and can't form a ring. It's not very 'sugar-like'. It is an extremely simple molecule, that would be easy to make ("stack") by random, and it looks like this (where the = means a double bond)

......H.H.... -- glycoaldehyde,
...HO-C-C=O.. -- the so-called
......H.H.... -- "space sugar"

You can find more info at these pages:

The structure and function of macromolecules (an outline)
Some sketches of various sugars (let the pictures load before scrolling, or you'll lose your place)