dsmith@HPLABSC (David Smith) (12/12/85)
The Monday, 12/9 INN news had a story about left handed sugars, and how they might revolutionize the diet/junk food industry. The story started off with an animation of Viking landing on Mars. It seems that the left handed sugars were developed for the life detection system, in case the Martian biochemistry was left handed. Left handed sugar cost $30,000 per pound then. The company which supplied the stuff has continued to work on the process, and has the cost down to $1 per pound. Now they have to do a lot of testing to satisfy the FDA before it starts going into food. (What I don't understand is how left handed sugar can taste sweet, if the body can't metabolize it.) David Smith ucbvax!hplabs!dsmith dsmith%hp-labs@csnet-relay.arpa
kenny@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU (12/20/85)
Anything with approximately the right electric dipole moment will taste
sweet. This includes some inorganic compounds like lead sulphate, which
was once called "sugar of lead" (and thought to be organic). BTW, DON'T
go tasting lead sulphate to verify this claim; it's a deadly poison.
k**2
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