Let’s start with ‘what’s a chemical’. Now, I’m glad you didn’t ask that, because you could say that just about any kind of stuff that isn’t a mixture of things is a chemical. So chemicals not only include the things you see in the school science lab, like hydrochloric acid, copper sulphate, and so on, but water, oxygen, table salt (sodium chloride) and so on. (Not air, though, because that’s a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases.)
The word ‘biochemistry’ refers to the chemistry of living things. (For some reason, the chemicals involved are not usually called ‘bio chemicals’, but they should be!) Plants and animals have many different kinds of sugars, proteins, fats (and more) inside them that have a part to play in the complicated workings of their bodies.
So remember, next time you eat meat, that you aren’t just eating one kind of protein, but many many different kinds — and that your body also MAKES many many kinds of proteins, sugars, fats…
There’s really a lot of chemistry going on in living things — biochemistry is too complicated for me, which is why I stuck to physics and astronomy! :-p
brayden
Hi brayden,
Let’s start with ‘what’s a chemical’. Now, I’m glad you didn’t ask that, because you could say that just about any kind of stuff that isn’t a mixture of things is a chemical. So chemicals not only include the things you see in the school science lab, like hydrochloric acid, copper sulphate, and so on, but water, oxygen, table salt (sodium chloride) and so on. (Not air, though, because that’s a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases.)
The word ‘biochemistry’ refers to the chemistry of living things. (For some reason, the chemicals involved are not usually called ‘bio chemicals’, but they should be!) Plants and animals have many different kinds of sugars, proteins, fats (and more) inside them that have a part to play in the complicated workings of their bodies.
So remember, next time you eat meat, that you aren’t just eating one kind of protein, but many many different kinds — and that your body also MAKES many many kinds of proteins, sugars, fats…
There’s really a lot of chemistry going on in living things — biochemistry is too complicated for me, which is why I stuck to physics and astronomy! :-p
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