Sweden plans to be world's first oil-free economy

[monkeytrousers]

Sounds like a good plan, lets hope it catches on!

tbh, I don;'t know. They could be using electric cars.....they have a lot of geothermal energy is iceland, so that could be it? But I could be wrong.

I've just taught this to y11....the carbon cycle.

The nitrogen cycle is even worse.

The beauty of the system is that no atom is ever created or distroyed, they just move from compound to compound in a never ending cycle of change.

The atoms in us all were orginaly the stuff of stars. mind blowing!

As a good Christian Lass ruty you will be pleased that I start my lessons for some groups on the carbon cycle with the biblical quote 'All flesh is grass'

How do you go about setting up a biodiesel co-op?

MB "this also gives us the oxygen that we need to respire....isn't biology wonderful"

oxygen is Chemistry first. Biology comes later.

dp wasn't involved in the initial stages but a few people got together, worked out viability, found a source and an outlet, got funding for starting it, argued, fell out, resigned from the committee, and opened the pump. now they staff the pump. Dp did mainly the website stuff (so it must have its own website but haven't seen it)

can direct you to the ones who did it if anyone interested.

PD, but eveything is physics in the end

Much as it goads me to admit it

In the beginning there was nothing

physics, chemistry, I don't make a distinction. But Bio, it is crazy:
Where did life come from?
What is life anyway?
What makes the DNA reproduce itself?
And what makes a living cell stop living?

Great questions!

Do you want answers, or will I bore the pants off you? (metaphoricaly you understand )

oooh... would so love to turn this into a philosophy discussion, LOL.

Go on, mb... fire away. Answer the quesitons, Miss !

I desire to have mine and peacedove's pants bored off us - metaphorically speaking of course.

Life comes from green soup.

Life is the delectation of aforementioned soup.

The DNA in soup reproduces because it has a God-given drive to become a main course.

The living cells in soup stop living when microwaved beyond about 21, sometimes 22 minutes.

Oh, and btw, how is dd doing, mb ? Have you had any further thought on what may have kicked everything off or do you reckon the consultant's opinion was correct ?

questions one and two are the biggies.....I think if I tried to answer them I would collapse from the effort and my keyboard would spontaneously combust! I'm also not sure that I could answer them accuratly

Suffice to say that something is alive if it

Moves
Reproduces
is Sensitive to its environment

Grows
Respires
Excretes its waste products
Requires Nutrition

Mrs Gren to year 7 Viruses are on the boarderline of being alive as they can only reproduce if they inside another living cell. So the jury is out on viruses

How does DNA reproduce? This is something that is being elaborated on, and refined all the time.

DNA consista of a sugar phosphate 'backbone', and 4 nitrogen contraining bases that pair up in a highly specific way. The bases are abbreviated to A, T C and G. A always binds to T and C always binds to G. the bases pair up and form 'rungs' between the two phosphate sugar back bones. They are helf together by weak conds called hydrogen bonds. A phosphate/sugar/ base contruct is called a nucleotide. DNA is a polymer of thses nucleotides

Basically (and I'm cowering in my shoes in case Tamum reads this and I make a gaff) the two strands of the DNA molecule are parted by an enzyme called DNA helicase. It cruses up the middle of the two strands, breaking the hydrogen bonds that hold the bases together. New nucleotides diffuse into the area and another enzyme DNA polymerase, connects up the separate nucleotides.

Because of the base pair rules two identical strands of DNA are formed, each contraining one of the parent strands

so a chain that went

A---T
C---G
G---C
A---T
A---T

would end up as

A-T A-T
C-G C-G
C-G C-G
A-T A-T
A-T A-T

Once replicated the molecules re coil and are identical copies of each other (almost always, unless there is a mutation)

animation here The faces are not actualy on the enzymes

good christian lass? Me? Are you sure?
Rather liked your poem Hub2Dee, reminded me of Roger Mcgough.
MB, how on earth do you find the time to educate us all? Very pleased you do tho!

Fennel, would be very interested. Setting up soemthing like this has never even crossed my mind. Do you have the web address too? Thanks. xx

kittyfish,

maybe you can CAT me if you can't get the right information through these links. though it's DP not me who's been involved. there is a basic website for their biodiesel station at

green gold biodiesel group in Manchester

perhaps more informative is this recent article on the group by the local paper. n.b. my dp is not in that photo
local paper article on the group

MB Thanks very much. That was very clear.

What is the relationship of genes, DNAs and chromosomes?

Could a complicated structure such as a DNA come about through purely physico-chemical processes?

Does a DNA molecule have an infinite capacity to reproduce itself?

and does noddy have a driving licence?

Speedymama was saying:

"...trees and plants emit up to 30% of the world's methane, a greenhouse gas.... This is really interesting and definitely something to monitor because of the implications for the arguments for protecting areas like the Amazon forests."

What about the oxygen that trees/forests produce? The world's lungs, all that? Oxygen, by volume, may make up for the methane emissions. Without the O2 from the rainforests, would we have net higher methane emissions from everything else?

And you also have to think, what would that land be used for, if not forest?

Pave it over? I think we can all seem drawbacks with that.

Grow crops? A, the soil is too poor quality to get much out in rainforests; B requires lots of resource inputs which may be env. beneficial, and C (issues I list below).

Animal grazing: then you have more methane-producing beasties.

Long-grass or rough-grass habitat: not naturally self-sustaining, and less oxygen or CO2 uptake.

And that's without including the value of bio-diversity or water/pollution-filtering functions of forests & wetlands.

Would be ironic if afforestation stopped in lowland areas and renewed in highland/boggy places; peat actually emits less methane when afforested!

Scientists haven't looked as closely at the NO2 budget, have they? That also varies wildly with landuse, I suspect.

PD, yet more good quesions. By the end of this you will have to go for your GCSE in Biology

Chromosomes are packages of DNA. In a cell that isn't dividing into two they don't exsist as such. When is acell is about to divide, strands of DNA supercoil around protein to form the chromosomes.....46 in a 'normal' human. So the chromosome is a wound up thread of DNA ready for the cell to divide into two. This has to happen because each cell contrains 2M , yes M of DNA and all of this would get dreadfully tangled up and make cell division imposible.

A gene is a lenght of DNA that holds the information to make a protein (more properly a polypeptide). There will be many geans on eacgh strand of dna

REmember the nitrogen containing bases I talked about?....it this these that hold the code for a protien three of them together are called a codon and a codon specifies an amino acid.

Can this happen by chance.....given billions of 'goes' even the most unlikly things can happen. But here is something for you to ponder on.....DNA can oly replcate by using enzymes, and enzymes are protiens that are made from a template of DNA......a biochemical chicken and egg?

Do you want to know how proteins are make? If so I need a rest

yes, please. Do tell us about proteins, and is it aminoacids? We can prepare for GCSE Bio on mumsnet, without opening a book.

billions of processes you said. Not good enough, I am afraid. Will post the order of odds, if and when I find it.

"a biochemical chicken and egg?" I like this.

all fascinating!

OK a protein is made up of individual amino acids joined together, like the beads on a necklace. There can be 20 different amino acids, like the different coloured and shaped beads. This is called the primary structure of the protein.

Now, what is amazing about these beads in that they are all different and they all have different properties. some are attracted to water, some are repelled by it, some have a +ve charge, some are -ve. Now negative attracts positive, the ones that like the water try to stay in the outside, ones that done like the water bury themselves in the middle of the protien and we have hydrogen bonds present. All of these bonds make the chain of amino acids twist and turn into a very complex 3D shape.

Here is the amazing part. Assuming that we all have normal blood all the haemoglobin in all our boddies will all be identical. And it is all down to the order of the amino acids in the primary structure of the protien. Change only one amino acid, and you can change the shape of the protein....giving you conditions like sickle cell anaemia.

Amazing isn't it?

Now comes the astonising part.

The order of the bases in the DNA chain contians the instructions to place each amino acid in the right place in the protien.

Three bases in the DNA 'codes' for an amino acid, says in effect put this amino acid here. Change the bases and you change the order of the amino acids.....and this is what causes genetic conditions like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease.

The manufacture of protiens takes 3 other nucleic acids, all made of RNA, not DNA.

This stuff is so cool, I love it

thanks MB. RNA and DNA, the difference?

Here is the amazing part:

The odds against even a single protein emerging randomly in its correct sequence is (10 to the power 950) to 1 - a mathematical impossibility.

you forgot the last questions in the two sets I have posted:

what makes a living cell stop living?

Does a DNA molecule have an infinite capacity to reproduce itself?

and the Haemoglobin thing. I saw a research film on that ages ago, with strands within the normal and sick RBCs. Almost made me go into that research.

OK, apoptosis...the planned death of cells. the ced protiens are involved....that much I do know but the rest is a bit out of my depth if I am honest.

Which is linked to the last question. Evey time a dna molcule replicated it looses a bit of itself....
these bit are simple repititions called telomers. there is an enzyme that can rebuild them, but this tends not to be present in higher cells (like in us and plants as oppsed to bacteria). Once the telemers are 'eaten up' the cell looses the ability to replicate itself

Differences between DNA and RNA.....a different sugar in the phosphate sugar backbone....Ribose inselad of Deoxyribose and RNA contains the base Uracil (U) insead of Thymine (T). So in Rna A binds to U not A to T. These differences give RNA molecules subtly different shapes, which allows them to do their different jobs