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Carbon


NavajoEverclear

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I read in my biologu book that carbon(and other elements that compose life, besides water) is not a very abundant element on earth, and yet we are made of it, so where does it come from? Well since we eat other things, it comes from them, but where to plants get theirs from? I know photosythesis preforms chemical reactions, but it obviously doesn't transform more abundant elements into the one we use (that would require nuclear power right?). So i think the soil is made of carbon (a stupid thing to say, it must be, but give me a break, i'm an undilligent highschool student), so plants get nutrients from soil. Where did all the soil come from? Far as i know its mostly decayed stuff broken down, but first you have to have things to decay, for them to die they must first live, to live they must eat, which esentially comes from plants who get their carbon from the soil which is made of something decayed. Is there there is some explanation for the evolution of soil, or whatever has played its role throughout history as the reserve of nutrients?

 

So either i must be missing something or it is an incredible miracle that such a rare (i aughta look up exactly how rare before i start rambling) element gather itself together conviniently to feed life.

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Plant's get their carbon from the Air (in the form of carbon dioxide.)

 

Even though carbon is fairly rare as elements go, there is more than enough to support the plant and animal life of the Earth with some left over. (it continuely gets recycled).

 

Long before we could use up all the carbon making up living matter, we'd run out of phosphorus, an element living tissue need's to run its metabolism. As far as life goes, it is the true bottleneck.

 

The reason carbon forms the backbone of life, despite its rareity, is because it forms complex chains so readily.

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Also, carbon gets recycled in the (very) long term by plate tectonics. That's where all the soil comes from, basically from mountains that weather down. This all eventually ends up in the sea- what goes up eventually comes down. Organic sources of carbon, especially tiny sea shells (calcium carbonate) that nothing much eats, collect on the sea floor and get carried into the mantle by subduction. As does phosphorus I think. Since living systems do a poorer job of recycling it, phosphorus % is more dependent how 'new' the crust is. Australia has particularly low percentages of phosphorous, because it's such an old place.

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Oh yeah carbon dioxide, duh. Still amazing that all this has become of it, but at least now i know essentially how. So plants take the carbon out of air and use it to build their body, guess that should be obvious, but i never thought of it that way till now. How about phosophorus, will we someday have to mine it to make sure we get enough. Don't we need such small quantities of it that depleting the resource wont come in a long time? If that does come will life die out until phosphorus works its way out of the mantle back to accsessibility by organisms?

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There was something along the lines of what Navajo said that I was thinking; except forward, instead of back.

 

If we continually use up so much stuff, and discard so much aswaste, how is it that Earth sustaining life at all? Or is it not?

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plants take phosphates from the soil, animals eat the plants and the phosphates then go into bone structures and cell mitachondria as ATP<>ADP. we then eat these animals and plants as were top of the food chain (end users).

Then we die and get cremated, stuck in an Urn and buried, most of the ash it in the form of calcium phosphate. the ones that get sprikled into the sea or land are doing their bit for recycling, those that have a traditional burial also do, those we keep on a shelf somewhere are the really selfish ones, that will leech away at our phosporus, but I recon we`de need the surface area of the USA to be coved in little Urns to make a significant impact :)

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I have an awkward subject to talk about: what is crap mostly made of? Why cant we just attach it to some oxygen like the carbon, to eliminate that unattractive exrement process? Or would that make our breath constantly nasty thus going in the reverse direction making us even more disgusting creatures. Obviously we don't have the capablility to redesign these things, Just wondering if its possible.------ oh and another question--- why don't plants crap (i'm glad the dont though)?------ oh sorry another question why do we breath out carbon dioxide? Doing so we lose carbon and oxygen, both of which we use------ i understand there is probably something very undeducated about this question, but since i dont totally understand i'll ask anyway.

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Faeces = indigestible components of food (e.g. cellulose), sloughed cells, water, and anywhere between 30% and 60% bacteria (mainly escherichia coli).

 

Broadly, carbon dioxide is the byproduct of the oxidisation of glucuse required to produce the energy to bind an organic phosphate to adenosine diphosphate (ADP), to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the mitochondria (where the krebs' cycle takes place), which is the source of our energy.

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Urine on the other hand, is a little of the Above with plenty nitrates added in the form of Urea (Uric acid/carbamide CO(NH2)2.) that will then oxidise down to Ammonia (NH3)(ever smelled an cat litter tray in desperate need of cleaning?)

both producys feaceis and urine were both collected for the making of Gum Powder too, active ingredient being Potassium Nitrate, (the potassium came from wood ashes)

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NavajoEverclear: Plants don't crap because their roots and leaves usually only take up chemicals they need. Some plants do excrete excess salt though, mangrove plants leaves excrete quite alot of it, you can see little crystals all over them.

 

We breath out carbon dioxide because it takes too much energy for it to be worth it for us to build large organic molecules from it. We just go around eating other things that have done the work, like plants, or things that have already ate them, like cows.

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