the Good, the Bad, and the BIOCHEMISTRY!
We all took chemistry over the past two years and it was terrible and its back.

We spent the entire period studying the properties of water which are super important because all life occurs in water, inside and outside of the cell.

COHESION AND ADHESION
COHESION: H bonding between water molecules

-just like Tom and his girl pictured above, water likes to stick together. That’s why we can suck it up through a straw.

- water has an extremely high surface tension, so that’s why not a lot of organisms can walk on it, except for Jesus and insects like the water strider of course. The strider’s impact on the water is less than H2O’s surface tension so they don’t sink.

ADHESION: H bonding with H2O and other substances
Ex: capillary action, meniscus, water on paper towel

SO LETS APPLY THESE TO REAL LIFE: trees.
Trees are built on cohesion and adhesion. The stomates on the tree’s leaves open to allow water molecules to evaporate. As one molecule leaves the leaf, it pulls another water molecule along, and it continues.

-polarity makes H2O a stellar solvent because water molecules surround positive and negative ions.
-hydrophilic and polar: DISSOLVE IN WATER
-hydrophobic and non-polar: SEPERATES FROM WATER (no attraction)

ICE ICE BABYYY.

All substances are denser as a solid right? NOPE, not water. Ice floats!
-At 4 degrees Celsius, water is at its densest.

So why is floating ice so important in real living things?
When lakes freeze over, the surface ice insulates the water below it making it possible for fish and other organisms to live through winter. Floating Ice also attributes to the cycling of nutrients.

FOGLIA ICE TIP OF THE DAY:
Make sure you always mix your drinks at the bar,

this way you never have to drink a weak mix, and you save cash!

SPECIFIC HEAT: how much energy is required to heat a substance
-water has a very high specific heat. It takes more to heat up and cool down water than anything else.
-specific heat’s important because H2O moderates all temperatures on earth.
-areas surrounded by land: extremes (super hot in summer, freezing in winter)
-areas near water: moderate temperatures year round

IONIZATION OF WATER AND pH
1. if H+ = -OH then water is neutral
2. if H+ > -OH then water is acidic
3. if H+ < -OH then water is basic

These three points make up the base of the pH scale

pH Scale- how acidic or basic a solution is measured on a 1 through 14 scale

1 being super acidic, 14 being super basic, 7 is neutral

Buffers- chemicals that allow control of pH measure

Lastly, here are a couple of lameo macaques