Respiration and Fermentation

[Jocelyn Thorp 1A]

Maybe this isn't included in this particular subcategory because it's more related to organic chem, but reduction and oxidation are the key ways in which cells get energy (fully reduced having the most available energy and fully oxidized having none available to use). This can either be through aerobic respiration or fermentation, where electrons are essentially used as currency. Fun fact, in aerobic respiration (e.g. the electron transport chain) oxygen is used as the terminal electron acceptor, and this process results in a net change in oxidation state between the electron donor and acceptor. For fermentation (e.g. glycolysis, alcoholic fermentation, any substrate linked phosphorylation), there's no net change in the oxidation states of the molecules, with molecules acting as both an electron donor and acceptor. Another fun note, is that in aerobic respiration, electrons are used to generate a proton gradient, and it's the proton motive force derived from this gradient that powers ATP synthase, allowing cells to convert ADP to ATP, which can be used throughout the body. Though this is more organic chem than general chem, as most of us are some sort of biology major, I just think it's a cool thing to share (that I learned in my microbiology class). If any of my explanation is confusing let me know :) and I may or may not be able to elaborate

[Justin Vayakone 1C]

My mind was blown when I learned about cellular respiration in LS7A. I remember in high school chem, I merely knew about the overall chemical reaction, glucose and oxygen yielding energy, CO2 and H2O. And now in LS7A, I'm starting to see just how crazy complicated the process really is. The human body is an amazing thing.