Re: PHYSICAL REVIEW FOCUS 4 October 2007 http://focus.aps.org/

Sam Wormley wrote:

PHYSICAL REVIEW FOCUS 4 October 2007 http://focus.aps.org/
David Ehrenstein, American Physical Society

Introductions to the Focus stories of the past week;
visit http://focus.aps.org for the complete stories.

OIL HOLDS WATER TRANSFIXED
Many of life's essential biological processes depend on water and
specifically on the repulsion that the oily parts of biomolecules
have toward water. But some aspects of the oil-water interaction
haven't been clear. Researchers reporting in the 5 October Physical
Review Letters studied water mixed with oily compounds using
precisely-timed pulses of infrared light. They showed that part of
the shell of water surrounding oily molecules is frozen in place,
confirming a controversial model from 60 years ago. The findings
could help scientists better understand how water repulsion molds
the molecules of life.
(Y. L. A. Rezus and H. J. Bakker, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 148301)
Link to the paper: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v99/e148301
COMPLETE Focus story at http://focus.aps.org/story/v20/st11

This is interesting work- it is important to realize that there is an electric field gradient of 60 mV/10nm (6*10^7 V/m) across every single cell membrane in our body. More across the mitochondria: 220 mV/10nm. This is a real electric field, and the cell extracts work from this to create ATP from ADP and move ions in and out of the cell.


--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University
.

Relevant Pages