The Building Blocks Of Life Flashcards
What is life?
Ability to store,capture,transmit energy. Reproduce, adapt to the environment and change over time. NASA describes as a chemical system self sustain that is capable to undergoing Darwinian evolution
What is all life made up from?
Primarily from carbs, proteins, lipids and nucleic acids. Cells are 70-95% of water the rest consisting mostly of carbon based compounds.
Why is everything carbon based?
Has tetravalence - can accommodate 8 electrons on outer shell but only has 4. Therefore reacts. Then start to form complicated structures
What are macromolecules?
A biological process to join smaller organic molecules together into larger molecules called macromolecules - can weigh over 100,000 Dalton’s
Form polymers
What is the function of lipids
To store energy, give structure to the cell membrane. And as steroids they are chemical messengers.
What is stearic acid?
Saturated fat and fatty acid - solid at room temperature
Can cause cardiovascular disease
What is oleic acid
Unsaturated fat and fatty acid - liquid. Plants and fish oils.
Kinks provided in double bonds prevent tight packing of the molecules.
What are the main classes of proteins
Structural, transport, defensive, enzyme, contractile, receptor, hormonal.
What is the function of proteins?
Controlling rates of reaction, building muscle and bone, transporting material in and out of cells and fighting diseases.
What are nucleic acids?
Monomer units known as nucleotide. RNA and DNA
Bacteria?
Simple life forms without nuclei
Archea?
Simple, microscopic creatures.
Eukarya?
Complex, multicellular organisms. Plants and animals
What are the 3 super kingdoms?
Bacteria, archea and eukarya
Eubacteria?
Simplest organisms, singled celled lacked nuclei
