Chemistry
“for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis” Did you know? Many molecules come in left- and right-handed mirror-image forms, and in medicines the “wrong hand” can be useless or harmful. Henri Kagan (Université Paris-Sud) showed in the 1980s that a slightly lopsided catalyst can give a strongly lopsided product. Kenso Soai (Tokyo University of Science) found a reaction whose product copies its own handedness. Both discoveries point to how life might have come to prefer one hand.