Biology 1002B Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Thermophile, Activation Energy, Mental Floss
Document Summary
Cells are islands of low entropy (very important in the midterm; at least one question on this slide) Important idea: one main characteristic of living system is that they are thermodynamically open, they exchange energy and matter with their surroundings; they bring in energy and matter to sustain lives. When foods are brought into the living system, energy and matter existed as a single thing, means they are combined together. For photosynthetic organisms, energy and matter are separate (photons (energy) vs. nitrogen and carbon (matter)) Living cells need energy to do work: taking things that are spread out and disorganized to combine them to produce something that has structure and function associates with it (e. g. protein synthesis; amino acids to protein) Protein synthesis is an extremely energy costly process. Energy tends to spread out, despite they are more confined formerly. Protein (energy confined in the bonds) > amino acids (energy spread out on many simpler molecules)
