A golden gap one molecule wide can now read life's mirror molecules — a nose for alien worlds

University of Osaka researchers led by Takahito Oshiro have built an electrical way to tell living chemistry from dead chemistry, one molecule at a time. Living things use amino acids almost exclusively in one mirror-image form (the L-form); lifeless processes make both forms equally. The team threads molecules through a gap between two gold nanowires and, with AI, reads the tiny tunneling current to tell L from D with over 80% accuracy — a first at the single-molecule level. Tested on Australia's Murchison meteorite and Chile's Atacama Desert soil, the method could become a compact, battery-friendly life-detector for future missions.