Re: Methane threatens to bake humanity like Turkeys in an Oven

In article <eqkbks$bb1$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"George Dishman" <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Ian Parker" <ianparker2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1170773437.783266.171750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<snip>

In fact (as I think I said in a previous exchange with you) you can
get quite a lot of DNA by carrying on up the Amazon. You can certainly
get copper as a species of horseoe crab has copper based haemoglobin.
What Greek! Haemos is iron. Haemoglobin contains iron!

Exactly, and Haemoglobin contains a _single_atom_
of iron.

Human haemoglobin comprises four similar protein subunits, each
containing a heme group with its iron atom, so in all it has four iron
atoms. You may be thinking of the smaller, related protein myoglobin,
which is not divisible into subunits and contains a single heme group.

And JFTR the Greek word _haima_ means "blood"; "iron" is _sideros_. The
two roots are found together in the medical term "haemosiderin", which
refers to granular iron-rich substances deposited in body tissues due to
certain metabolic abnormalities. A "siderite" is a meteorite containing
a large proportion of iron; "siderite" is also the geological name for
ferrous carbonate.

BTW some have connected the Greek _sideros_ with the Latin _sidus_,
"star", from which we get "sidereal", as an allusion to meteorites as an
early source of iron -- indeed, native iron (that doesn't require
smelting from ores) is pretty well unknown otherwise. But AFAIK
historical linguists now consider this association to be spurious, a
case of "false friends".

--
Odysseus
.

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