The 8 General Properties of Living Systems

Chemical uniqueness

Complexity and Hierarchical organization

Reproduction

A genetic program

Metabolism

Development

Enviormental interaction

Movement

Hydrogen Bonds

• A hydrogen bond is a non-covalent bond between a p and a partial posotive charge.
• very numerous which somewhat offsets their weak nature

Explain water's high specific heat

• A temperature increase is the increase in the movement of molecules
• water molecules resist breaking their hydrogen bonds therefore resist heating
•  causes resistance to radical temperature swings within beings and bodies of water 

Explain waters high heat of vaporization

• It takes a lot of heat to break all the hydrogen bonds so water resists vaporizing

Explain waters unique density behavior

•  When water freezes at 0° the four partial charges of each atom interact with the opposite charges of atoms in the other molecules, this results in every molecule having 4 hydrogen bonds at the farthest distance possible 
• Because other liquids become more dense as the temperature drops, water is the only substance that floats in its solid form

Explain waters high surface tension

• Hydrogen bonds create cohesiveness 
• Molecules cling together at the water-air interface

Solvent

• A substance in which a solute has or can dissolve.

What makes water a good solvent?

• efficiently dissolve hydrophilic substances
• This occurs as a consequence of adhesion
• molecules form a hydration shell that surrounds hydrophilic substances and adheres so powerfully that it is more energetically favorable for many polar substances to exist as individual molecules than to remain within a homogeneous solid material. Thus, hydrophilic substances tend to dissolve in water.

Reduction

• The addition of electrons to an atom or molecule

Oxidation

• The removal of electrons from an atom or molecule

Cohesion

Adhesion

•  the attraction of a water molecule to a non-water molecule

Hydrophillic substance

• Polar molecules and charged ions. In other words, hydrophylic substances are those to which water tends to adhere
• (Water friendly)

Hydrophobic substance

• Non polar
• tend to not readily dissolve in water

Hydrolysis

• Splitting compounds into smaller pieces by the addition of a water molecule

Condensation reaction

• the reactant molecules are combined by the removal of a water molecule
• a hydrofen from one and a hydroxyl from the other

Carbohydrate

• C(H2O): An organic compounds having large numbers of -OH groups (specifically, one -OH for every C and H)

Function of Carbohydrates

• Chemical energy and structural elements

Monosaccharides

Give example

• Simple sugars consisting of a single monomer
• glucose

Linear representation of glucose

                      H    

                       l     

       H  H   H  O  H      H

        I   I    I    I    I     /

   H-C–C–C–C–C–C

        l    l    I    l    I     \\

       O  O  O  H   O     O

        I    I    I         l

        H  H   H       H 

Diasaccharides

• Double sugars joined by condensation reaction

Fats and Lipids

• Molecules with low polarity and virtually insoluable in water

Functions of lipids and fats

• Fuel storage and building materials

Three principal groups of lipids

• Neautral fats
• Phosopholipids
• Steroids

Neautral Fats

• Fat for storage that gets oxidezed and released into the bloodstream as needed

Triglycerides

• Contain glycerol and three molecules of fatty acids
• Esters - combination of alcohol (glycerol) and an acid
• 14-24 carbons long

Saturated

• Every carbon within the chain holds two hydrogen atoms
• Solid at room temp

Unsaturated

• Two or more carbon atoms joined by a double bond
• Carbons not saturated with hydrogen atoms so they can form bonds with other atoms

Phospholipids

Steroids

•  Steroids serve as hormones in animals and play structural roles in mostly animal cell membrane
•  
• In cell membranes, steroids such as cholesterol serve to stabilize the membrane

Structure of saturated Fat

O     H  H H H H H H H H H  H H H H H

  \\     l   I   l   l  I   I   I   I   I  I   I   I   I  l   I 

    C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-H

   /     I  I   I   I   I   I   I   l   I  I   I   I   I   I   I

HO   H H H H H H  H  H H H H H H  H  H

CHOLESTEROL

• 17 carbon ring 
• important in hormones, bile salts, and cell membrane 

Proteins

• Composed of amino acids
• important in structure and chemical reactions 

What are the building blocks of proteins?

• Amino acids. Proteins are linear polymers of as many as hundreds of amino acids.

Amino Acids

• take their names from their structure which consists of an amino group (-NH₂) and a carboxy group (-COOH) connected through a central carbon.
• Most have the formula ₂HN-CHR-COOH where R is a variable side chain (attached to the central carbon)

What is an R group

• There are 20 naturally occurring amino acids (variations on R) that are incorporated into proteins
• Some nonpolar, some hydrophillic
• the differences on the R group effect a proteins structure

What causes protein structures complexity?

• Because of variation among R groups, amino acids have diverse structures that define their roles in proteins

Peptide Bonds

• The bond that links amino acids together to form proteins
• formed by a condensation reaction between two amino acids, The resulting molecule, consisting of two or more amino acid monomers is called a peptide

Protein primary structure

• The sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide

Why does the primary structure have polarity?

• amino acids have polarity (₂HN-CHR-COOH), and are always linked in the same orientation in a given polypeptide by a peptide bond and polypeptides are linear polymers so the primary structure of a protein has polarity 

Secondary Structure

• Repetitive folding of a polypeptide chain into certain types of consistent structure.
• known as alpha helices and beta sheets.

Tertiary Structure

• The complete 3-dimensional structure
   

What happens in sickle cell hemoglobin?

• The primary structure of hemoglobin has 1 different amino acid of of 146
• Primary structure effects tertiary 

Prion

• An infectious protien that can proliferate by converting other proteins
• Ex) TSE, CWD, Mad cow
• Changes protein from soluable to insoluable
• changes tertiary structure
•  

Nucleic Acids

• DNA & RNA
• Carry information on how to make proteins
• Made of repeated nucleotide units
• Only molecules that replicate themself 

What test disproved spontaneous generation?

• life from non life, horse hair worms
• Maggots on meat without netting by fransesco redi
• Louis Pasteur-chemical evolution from organics in beaker

What do eukaryotes have that prokaryotes dont?

• Membrane around nucleus
• Mitochondria
•