Methods: 90% R and S lac6c acid solu6ons were obtained from Musashino Chemical Laboratory Ltd, Tokyo. Viscosity measurements are made with a Baoshishan NDJ-5s Viscometer (Vevor UK) with a 25 ml bob-and-cup #0 rotor accessory. Data acquisi6on was via an RS-232 interface and wifi-enabled AirDrive Serial Logger Pro accessed via an iPhone. The cup was immersed in a 5 l water bath at room temperature for thermal iner6a. MD simula6ons were done with Gromacs 22 , using the CHARMM27 force field for the helix. Compa6ble parameters for the lac6c acid were obtained using SwissParam . Lennard-Jones and electrosta6c interac6ons were truncated at 1 nm. The 6mestep was 2 fs. Each system was equilibrated during 30 ps of MD in the NVT ensemble at room temperature , followed by 30 ps in the NPT ensemble at atmospheric pressure and room temperature . During equilibra6on, the heavy atoms of the helix were harmonically restrained. Each produc6on run consisted of 4 ns in the NPT ensemble. Helix rota6on was achieved using the pivot-free isotropic poten6al method with a spring constant of 50 kJ/(mol nm 2 ). The helix was rotated along its axis at a rate of 0.36 degree/ps and the torque required to do so was recorded every 0.2 ps.