Monday, October 08, 2007

bolisms

Metabolism is the term used to refer to the set of all the reactions occurring in the living body.
Metabolism comes from the greek root metaballein "to change". I think it has nothing to do with the word meta, meaning beyond/para.

Metabolism can be split into catabolism and anabolism. Reactions can occur in two ways, remember? A + B gives AB in anabolism, where the reactions occur to build up tissues and cells. Catabolism is the other way round: It's the breaking up of large molecules into constituent parts, and then used in assimilation.

How's that now?

3 comments:

  1. Basically analogous to chemical combination and chemical decomposition. Is that all what you wanted us to remember? I remember chemical displacement and chemical double displacement too :P Throw some light on them as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have no idea what you are talking about - chem displacement and double ones. If possible, you put some light on them for me...but I will also try to find out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We learnt about these for the first time when we were in our 7th class!
    Here they are, for you.
    Chemical Combination: A + B -> C
    Chemical Decomposition: A -> B + C
    Chemical Displacement: A + BC -> AB + C
    Chemical Double Displacement: AB + CD -> AC + BD

    ReplyDelete