Here's the link.

I hate to be a science-weenie, but sucralose/splenda is not just sugar of opposite chirality, it has several oxygen atoms replaced by chlorine. http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/549sucralose.html
for a picture. However, your analysis of Bizzaro World biology is, of course, flawless.

Super. My head just fucking exploded.

Whoa, that's deep, Ace. Are you on dope again?

As for a world of wrong-handed biologicals, I can only think of a world where cats and dogs live together. Mass hysteria, in other words.

You're freakin' me out, man.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

The truth is, I like being a science weenie. I can't figure out why I hyphenated 'science weenie' earlier though.

Through the looking glass, anyone? On this planet, my mother-in-law would LIKE me?

What is this happy horsecrap?

We visit for the funny, not science lectures.

I leavened it with retard-friendly Bizarro analogies.

This is cool and all, but generally I only like to have a science post interrupt my retard-drooling if it involves robots, flying cars, or monkeys in human clothing. And frankly, I'm not even sure monkeys in human clothing can enerally qualify as "science," per se.

Rocketeer-- would monkeys in lab coats count?

Roger Zelazny was ahead of the curve. He had a novel in the 70's, 'Doorways in the Sand', that featured an alien machine that could reverse the handedness of objects as a plot device. That was my first encounter with the concept.

Those sugar substitutes were supposed to be great and completely indiscernable from the real thing but instead they taste funny and are carcinogenic in ridiculous consumption qualities. I recently tried Minute Maid's line of 'half the sugar' fruit juices. Ugh. Rather than just cutting the sugar they try to make up for it with Splenda and it's awful. So much for cutting calories there. Simpler just to add water.

Not nice, Dave. You get me all excited about monkey-scientists, and what do I find when I click the link? A freakin' cartoon from Ace's collection of of Highlights magazine back issues.

I'm telling ya', Ace already linked a picture of an alien lifeform. I'd bet real money Personality Quiz Guy is an alien being. He is Yarnek of Excalbia in a shitty, rubber mask.

So am I to believe that Vietnamese hookers are really alien beings.

Someone needs to send them a copy of Little Big Man. I think it was Shadow That Comes In Sight that was the contrary, he fits the description.

Those sugar substitutes were supposed to be great and completely indiscernable from the real thing but instead they taste funny and are carcinogenic in ridiculous consumption qualities.

You sure it's Splenda? I can't tell the difference between splenda and sugar, and I can tell the difference between sugar and asparatame and saccharine.

I hadn't heard about it being carcinogenic. I wonder if you're confusing sucralose with saccarine.

I think sucralose is indeed carcinogenic when you inject 55 gallons up your ass daily. Rats that acquired cancer had the equivalent.

Ace-
There has been a lot of work done on sucralose, and it is deemed quite safe, and is approved in Canada and Europe as well as the US. It was discovered in the 70s, if I recall correctly, so it appeared when there was a crapload of regulation of this kind of thing. It didn't get approval here until the late 90s, though FAO/WHO endorsed its use in 1990 or so.

You can find chiropractors and healthfood hawkers who collect Splenda "horror stories" but the open literature doesn't support any adverse health claims.

Though I admit I missed the paper about injecting 55 gallons of the stuff up one's ass ;) Wonder what you'd have to pay test subjects for that one?

All that, and I'd get paid too?

I think sucralose is indeed carcinogenic when you inject 55 gallons up your ass daily.

I've been feeling funny lately...if those 55gal sucralose enemas are giving me cancer I'm going to sue the shit out of someone and grab for that CrazyLawsuitMoney™ brass ring.

I've always thought of Paul Davies as something of a loon, but I've never read his books - just reviews of his books. But if he holds the keys to the gates of Bizarro World, that's good enough for me.

As a world-renowned fat guy, I can assure you, Splenda doesn't taste like sugar. It also doesn't taste like high fructose corn syrup, either.

It's the Devil's work.

I'm thinking this 'handedness' thing could only be attributable to intelligent design. Kind of like the Supreme Being taping your left hand to your thigh so you'll learn to use your right hand like normal people? But every once in a while, when the Supreme Being isn't looking, you drop a tab of amino acid and pretty soon you can't remember which hand is taped to your leg. Or that you even have hands. See what I mean?

Ah, that must be it. I'm unrepentedly left handed, so I can see through the sinister illusion of Splenda.

Seriously, all the products I've tried with taste funky. Not repugnantly unpleasant but it doesn't live up to the claims. I'd rather have weak flavor than odd flavor.

epobirs- Some diet drinks mix acesulfame K with sucralose. This is known to have a bitter aftertaste, but the properties of sugar are hard to mimic with a single compound. And the job isn't just to be sweet. There are a bunch of other flavor profile aspects that the mixtures are trying to match. It's a lot more complex than I ever imagined.

I think the sucralose-containing drinks I have tried tasted pretty rancid, too. But I bought some of the small packs to put in coffee and tea, and while the taste is not quite right, it isn't bad. Not like aspartame or saccharin.

Ace : I hereby serve notice on you for my brain fracture lawsuit. One third of the way through reading this post my brain froze and then fractured. I calculate the damages as follows: $1.50 for replacement brain, $250,000 for medical procedures and $259,000,000,000 for pain, humilation, lawyers fees and punitive damages. Please make check out to my law firm Hookem, Screwem, and Fleecem P.O. box 896 Pendleton, Oregon.

As far as the carcinogenic properties of the sweeteners go, aspartame was only carcinogenic to the female lab rats. It turns out the male lab rats lacked a certain gene on their DNA which the aspartame reacted to, causing the cancer. Humans lack this gene as well, so there's no problem for us.

In regards to the "Bizarro" amino acid world, as far as I'm aware, there's no real way of telling at this point whether such a thing is possible. Chirality can affect the chemistry of compounds in biological systems in ways that can often be deadly. It's why the FDA requires pure enantiomers (left or right handed compounds) for drugs. The difference between left and right handed compounds can mean the difference between a mild sedative and a lethal poison.

It turns out the male lab rats lacked a certain gene on their DNA which the aspartame reacted to, causing the cancer

OMG - the uber-feminists are going to flip over this "genetic injustice".