Chapter 3: Energy

Web Links

Life and The Laws of Energy --- Charles Mazel’s Optical Alchemy page photographs corals emitting unused energy as light – fluorescence.

ATP - The Energy Molecule --- Note: The following exercise will be a great (and free) resource for future chapters — e.g. viewing DNA in 3-D is fun and really helps you to visualize DNA and understand its structure! Using a free plug-in for Windows called CHIME, which you can download from the Internet, you can view ATP (and other molecules) in three dimensions. Using your mouse, you also can move and rotate these molecules to get views of them from different vantage points.

Respiration - Breaking Down Sugar to Make ATP --- The use of light energy for the production of nutrients, and the breakdown of these nutrients for energy occurs in the oceans as well as on land. Go to this web site to consider photosynthesis, respiratory processes and nutrient and energy cycling in the marine environment..

Glycolysis --- The biochemical pathway of glycolysis, in which glucose is broken down in the absence of oxygen, illustrates several of the principles that you have learned. For example, ATP performs many jobs within the cell and is involved in many cellular reactions, including glycolysis. ATP is both used and generated in glycolysis. In addition, enzymes are required at each step to catalyze the reactions that would go very slowly without them.

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