Chemistry+for+the+Biologist

Chemistry is very important to know about regardless of what field of science one is studying, but it can be especially helpful when looking at biology. Life as we know it requires about 25 different chemical elements, substances in their purest form that cannot be broken down any further, the most prominent of them being Oxygen (O), Carbon (C), Hydrogen (H), and Nitrogen (N). These four elements make up about 96.3% of the the human body, with O making up about 65%, C 18.5%, H 9.5% and N 3.3%. The rest of the human body is made up of trace elements, chemical elements that are essential to some organisms but only in very small amounts. Some examples of trace elements are Boron (B), Chromium (Cr), Copper (Cu), Iodine (I), Iron (Fe), Tin (Sn), and Zinc (Zn).

WHY DO WE STUDY CHEMISTRY IN BIOLOGY? Chemistry is very important in everyday biology. People need to know about the building blocks of the world to be able to understand life. You need to know what the smallest living particles are, and what the smallest particles that retain chemical properties are. Many people over look this as an unnecessary, but to understand life, we must understand what life is made of. “Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.”

Polar Molecules - Water

Polarity- The electrons in a covalent bond are shared unquequally causing one atom to be partially negative and the other to be partially positive because of electronegativity, which is the tendency of an atom to pull electrons towards itself.

The polarity of water is because of the eletrconegativity of oxygen. Since oxygen is more electronegative (oxygen has more electron shells than hydrogen), it attracts the shared electron from the hydrogen atoms so that they are closer to the oxygen atom. This causes the oxygen atom to become slightly more negative and the hydrogen atoms slighty more positive.