I often bang on about amino acids as the building blocks of proteins. Plants can make them from carbohydrate they make themselves through photosynthesis and nitrates absorbed from the soil; you get them from your diet. Your genes are codes for individual proteins which are constructed from chains of amino acids. One of the first …
Continue reading Amino Acids In Space…
More definitions and links to Twig Prep videos as a companion to Words (Chem. Ed.) Respiration – whilst dictionaries and encyclopaedia will define this as ‘supplying the cells with oxygen’ we always use it in the sense of “the process within all living cells that releases energy from food molecules (usually glucose)” aerobic – aerobic …
Continue reading Words, Words, Words (Bio. Ed.)…
Apologies – this has ended up being a long read. Don’t feel you have to do it all in one. I will post separate pieces on much of this in the future. This might be a useful page to refer back to in the future. Graphics like this annoy me slightly. The information is good …
Continue reading Food Groups…
Some of you will know that cows are my favourite animals so you can imagine how delighted I was to see a headline a few years ago in the Telegraph… “McDonald’s launches study into flatulent cows used in its burgers” This seems to include several of my favourite scientific themes; namely cows, the scientific method, food and burping (eructation). What …
Continue reading Cows – Nature’s Most Noble Beasts…
I go on about amino acids a lot. Sorry about that! If you click here you will be logged into Focus eLearning (come straight back!), then if you click here you will be taken to a nice page about how the digestive enzyme pepsin breaks a protein molecule in your food down into individual amino …
Continue reading Tryptophan…
I didn’t like sprouts as a child and I must admit to a degree of ambivalence even now as an adult. I think they are generally better-cooked these days so that they arrive at the table crunchy rather than mushy (everything seemed to be boiled to destruction when I was young). I am just not …
Continue reading Brussel Sprouts…
I often refer to respiration as the most important chemical reaction on the planet (arguable!). Encyclopaedia Britannica defines cellular respiration as… the process by which organisms combine oxygen with foodstuff molecules, diverting the chemical energy in these substances into life-sustaining processes and discarding, as waste products, carbon dioxide and water The Oxford English Dictionary divides …
Continue reading Respiration…
I have often mentioned the importance of nitrogen (in the form of nitrate) to the growth of plants. It gets mentioned pretty regularly in the questions after several posts and when I wrote about crop circles, Fritz Haber and Norman Borlaug. Plant nutrients often appear as part of exam questions so please forgive me if …
Continue reading Plant Nutrients Part One…
A catalyst is a substance that enables (or speeds up) a chemical reaction without itself being altered by that reaction. Catalysts, therefore, are not used up as they influence a reaction. Enzymes are biological catalysts – in other words catalysts that operate within living things. The names of enzymes are usually made by putting -ase …
Continue reading Biological Catalysts…
It would be very helpful if you could draw a labelled diagram of a typical animal cell and of a typical plant cell. You probably won’t be asked to draw one in an exam but knowing that you can will give you the confidence to answer questions about cells. Everything above should be fairly familiar …
Continue reading Plant Cells v Animal Cells
