Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
What cleaners can ammonia be safely mixed with? Spic & Span?
NOTHING WITH BLEACH. The reaction will produce chlorine gas.
What cleaners can ammonia be safely mixed with? Spic & Span?
NOTHING WITH BLEACH. The reaction will produce chlorine gas.
Question about the salinity of the ocean: what balances the number of sodium and chloride ions flowing in from rivers and the like, so that the salinity stays roughly constant? Why doesn't the salinity of the ocean just increase without bound? Googling this, a popular answer seems to be that life forms consume those ions and leave the salinity roughly constant, but if that's true, wouldn't the oceans have turned into a giant Dead Sea before life developed?
But the ocean isn't anywhere near saturated, is it? IIRC, it's only about 3-3.5% salt by mass, a factor of about 10 less than the Dead Sea, which is saturated with salt.The main answer: Different chemicals have different solubility indexes. Once a solution is saturated with chemicals, the excess tends to precipitate out of solution, generally. So that explains that the ocean doesn't become salty out of bounds. The floor becomes salty. And also I believe there's a partial molar effect on the amount of solute that a solution can carry where each prior solute (salt) affects how much more can enter the solution.
Also, I'd assume some salt is taken up by organisms. And some salinity goes back to land through the water cycle (e.g. rains, salt nucleates rain drops).
And I'd think coastal swamps play some role in salt content of the oceans.
Also I think you're confused about "salinity". You're talking about ionic balance between positive and negative ions. Salinity is just a generic measure of the total amount of salt ions as typically measured by the conductivity caused by the electrical field of the ions.
I imagine that life would be a major user of sodium and chloride ions. But is it the only thing that has a significant role to play in keeping the ocean's salinity below saturation? And if so, would the oceans have contained Dead Sea levels of salt before life evolved? Seems like it would be hard for life to develop under such conditions, although I know there are extremophiles that can live in the Dead Sea, so maybe that's the answer?
I've been wondering something loosely along these lines...
From what I understand, life on earth is pretty much entirely dependent on acids: DNA, RNA, the usual vitamins, etc. I don't know if proteins are considered acids.
Why aren't bases the foundation of terrestrial biochemistry? Could it have gone the other way in a different roll of the evolutionary dice? I mean, is this the same thing as the chirality of proteins, or is there something fundamental about acidity viz-a-viz biology that I don't know?
Seems like a sophistic question really.
But yeah chirality would be influenced if you had say the choice of acids (protons) or bases (hydroxyls) to put on. E.g. if a molecule was so acidified or basic then it couldn't be chiral (too much protons or too much hydroxyls, then no potential for chirality). But then is chirality really that important other than life favors one form of chirality (left-handed)? Chirality probably helps limit the geometry of molecules letting you encode more info in their arrangement (if you think of inter-molecular associates as having information).
AFAIK, the fundamental chemistry of terrestrial biology is actually dependent upon the properties of water. Acids/bases in life molecules is just nomenclature, since most life is at about a neutral pH.
From what I understand, life on earth is pretty much entirely dependent on acids: DNA, RNA, the usual vitamins, etc. I don't know if proteins are considered acids.
Well...DNA and RNA consist of bases, so i guess this part of your question eliminates itself .
The chirality of amino acids is unrelated to acidity or basicity since it derives from stereogenic carbon atoms. Simply put, amino acids with the wrong configuration won't be incorporated in proteins.
Under extreme conditions of acid or base, amino acids can lose their stereochemistry, but under such conditions amino acids will be the least of your concerns.
What I was saying was you can't have stereo-chemistry if all your substituents are hydroxyls are protons, since that eliminates the possibility of chiral centers. That's what I meant that you couldn't have extremes of acidity or basicity, since then there wouldn't be chiral centers.
They're nucleic acids. That's what the A in DNA and RNA stands for.
Is there any rationale whatsoever to the fact that if an electric current is passed along the x-axis, the magnetic field will be in the y-axis?
What causes wind?