1. More precisely, the angle a through which the plane of polarization is rotated can be given a sign as follows: when looking towards the incoming beam of light, for a clockwise rotation of a, we would assign the term ‘right-handed’; if such a rotation is anticlockwise we say that the rotation is ‘left-handed’.
2. Oró, J. (1995) Chemical synthesis of lipids and the origin of life, in Ponnamperuma, C. and Chela-Flores, J. (eds.), (1995) Chemical Evolution: The Structure and Model of the First Cell, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 135–147.
3. Cf. Glossary: “glycerol”; cf. also Kandier, O. (1995) Cell wall biochemistry in Archaea and its phylogenetic implications, in Ponnamperuma, C. and Chela-Flores, J. (eds.), (1995) Chemical Evolution: The structure and model of the first cell, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 165–169.
4. Cf. Glossary: “neutron star”, supernova and enantiomer; cf. also Chapter 2, “molecular clouds”.
5. Bonner, W. A. (1991) The origin and amplification of biomolecular chirality, Origins of Life and the Evolution of the Biosphere
21, 59–111.