Re: Alien bacteria and biosphere II

[David@interworld.com (David Levine)]

KellySt@aol.com wrote:

> Folks, only Viruses care what the DNA of the victum is.  Bacteria, molds,
> fungus -- in short every infectious desease that can be cured by
> anti-biotics.  Are only interested in humans as a protean and amino acid
> source.
> 
> Kelly

Okay, so reword my previous comments to something along the
lines of "this assumes that they require the same protiens,
etc. as we do to function"... granted, there's a much
greater chance of this than us being infected by an alien
virus, but I assume it is still possible that their
chemistry/biology can be sufficiently different to make
infection harmless.

It's not my strong point, but didn't I read somewhere
once that while a lot of the proteins, etc. we live on,
while they can be either L- or R- versions (left handed
or right handed), are all mainly L-?  I think I read a
short story where someone went through a strange experiment
and came out with an R- based system, and no one knew it.
He was slowly starving to death because his system couldn't
use anything he ate.  Or am I barking up the wrong tree
here?

-David