Environmental Chemistry Flashcards
What are nutrients?
Chemicals that are used by the body for energy, growth, body building, and cell repair
What does organic mean?
Carbon-containing
What are the main organic nutrients?
Carbohydrates, vitamins, lipids, and proteins
What do vitamins do?
Help enzymes function
What do carbohydrates do?
Provide immediate energy
What do lipids do?
Provide stored energy
What do proteins do?
Structural molecule of the body and helps chemical reactions
What are macrominerals and trace elements?
Macrominerals are elements that you need over 100 mg per day and trace elements are elements that you need under 100 mg per day
What do different elements do in the body?
See image 25
How do we get the nutrients we need?
Through other organisms such as plants and animals, due to a plant’s ability to concentrate nutrients very well
What does NPK stand for?
Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, that benefit leaves, roots and seeds respectively
Why is fertilizer important?
It allows us to grow much Much MUCH more food
What are pesticides and what are the 3 types?
Something sprayed to prevent that area from being contaminated by pests and include insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides
What does DDT stand for?
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane
What were the benefits of DDT?
It stopped millions of deaths from malaria, yellow fever, typhus etc., earning its inventor, Paul Hermann Muller a Nobel prize
What were the downsides of DDT?
It quickly spread into ecosystems, killing off many many many species through the food web, even causing mutations and creating bird eggs with unfeasibly thin eggshells
What is biomagnification?
The process of concentrating contaminants the higher up on a food chain you go
What were the upsides of banning DDT?
It helped the ecosystems recover
What were the downsides of banning DDT?
Millions of preventable deaths happened
What is a major issue in creating one safe and effective pesticide?
Pesticide resistance, caused by natural selection
What is the difference between a poison and a toxin?
Toxins are proteins that cause bodily harm while a poison is anything that causes bodily harm
What is an acid?
A chemical that produces an acidic substance with a PH of less than 7
What is a base?
A chemical that produces a basic substance with a PH of more than 7