Wrap Up Cellular Respiration and Some real world "WHY SHOULD WE CARE????" moments!!!

We finished up Cellular Respiration today - REMEMBER OUR TEST IS ON FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!

Daily Questions:

For some of the discussion around this please watch the following screen cast.

Yesterday we learned the difference between Aerobic and Anaerobic respiration and the FIRST steps of cellular respiration (whether it be in a prokaryote or eukaryote)

Today we went through the next two options:

This chapter has a WHOLE lot of things that are hard to "picture" in your minds.  I have been searching for ways to make this "real" to you.  We used the pop it bead models to go through photosynthesis.  To "See" the production of Carbon Dioxide - we used A solution with a pH indicator called Bromothymol Blue which is BLUE at a neutral pH and turns a Green or Yellow color in an acid pH.  When Carbon Dioxide and water mix the Carbonic Acid is formed.

Sooooooooo - I let you blow bubbles today to show you that we do in fact breath out Carbon dioxide.

What happens when Oxygen is no available (or you are an organism that doesn't have mitochondria........)

Hopefully you all have felt "Lactic Acid Burn" sometime in your life......  What happens here is your NEED for oxygen is greater than your bodies ability to bind and transfer oxygen, so instead your cells convert the pyruvate created during Glycolysis into Lactate (lactic acid)

How much oxygen do we actually breath in?????

Why does this matter???? Well.... The "fitter" you are (the more ENDURANCE you have) - The more oxygen you are able to bind with any given breath!!

 

What about Alcoholic Fermentation???  We often times think this ONLY happens in organisms like yeast - But it actually happens in US as well.....  Now - Any ethanol produced by our cells is generally split back apart by enzymes in our liver.   BUT...... There have been cases of people that ethanol produced by their own body builds up.
Here is an abstract of a court case dealing with people with "auto-brewery syndrome"

 And here is a news clip of an example: