In thinking about how when a tree consume CO2 and expels O2, the carbon is captured by the tree and converted (oversimplification?) into wood (and other places like into the ground or trading it for nutrients with mycelium). This process translates to us humans, I think, in that we consume food and our bodies extract the vitamins, minerals, and other stuff to add on to our overall mass, and we expel the waste.
But in addition to mass, the food is also converted into energy for locomotion and such, right? What is that process like? Assuming the energy does come from the food we consume, what system inside us is a biomatter energy plant in that it accepts (what I’m assuming to be) carbs & fats as input and converts (extracts?) the energy and converts it to electricity?
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It’s quite a complicated system…but…
Have a look at a beginner’s presentation of the Krebs Cycle (KC). It’s at the center of the process.
Essentially, energy-containing chemicals (from food) enter the KC and produce a chemical, ATP, that is the actual thing that we “burn” inside our cells.
Sugars, fats, and proteins enter the KC and ATP comes out…we move and think and make love and stay warm…thank you ATP.
It’s fascinating, actually.
It does not convert it to electricity.
It converts it from one form of chemical energy to another.
Basically we get sugar , fat , and protein and using a process(cellular respiration) we get some energy stored in form of ATP.
The energy is stored in the chemical bonds of the molecule.
Then ATP is the energy source for basically all our bodily functions.
There is no process that turns it to electricity.
The only electricity that happens is in nervous system where neurons pump negative ions on one side and positive on the other- therefore creating an electrical signal.
It doesnt get converted to electricity. It gets converted to atp through the process of respiration.
This takes in glucose and air, and outputs carbon dioxide and water (plus energy which is stored in ATP molecules)
Eli5 – breaking down food makes an electrical gradient (basically a current) in mitochondria which is used to make ATP. Other electrical gradients (like in neurons) are made by breaking down ATP and using its energy to do so. ATP is the energy currency for everything. You want to move? ATP is broken down to make that happen.
Longer, not really eli5 explanation because this is, hands down, the coolest process going on in the body. I’m not talking about how glucose is broken down into citrate and blah blah Krebs cycle, which is very cool, but not as cool as how ATP is actually Made –
ATP is a high energy molecule. There’s a bond in it which, when broken, releases energy that gets transferred to other chemicals and allows your cells to do stuff that requires effort. The bond in ATP is unstable – basically it wants to break – and requires an input of energy to form.
All the breaking of food molecules into smaller ones produces H+ (hydrogen ions). (See Krebs cycle for details – full disclosure I don’t remember all of it as it’s been years since I studied biochem!) Hydrogen ions are electrically charged and the enzymes that break down food molecules are like little valves that only allow the resulting H+ to collect within the double membrane of mitochondria. This creates an electrochemical gradient with a lot of positive ions in the membrane all trying to get across it to an area of low concentration of H+ in the mitochondria proper. (They “want” to go to this area because of duffusion and the fact that like charges repel each other.) In the absence of a proper diagram you have outer mitochondrial membrane, layer of high H+ concentration, inner mitochondrial membrane, and the center of the mitochondria.
This is where it gets really cool. With some exceptions, the main way for H+ to get out of between the membranes and into the mitochondria proper is through a pore that is controlled by a gatekeeper molecule called ATPase. To pass through this pore ATPase has to physically turn, like a turn style, but can only do so when ADP and P are attached to ATPase on the other side of the gate, inside the mitochondria. The act of turning the ATPase changes its shape to push ADP and P together and turn them into ATP (adenosine diphosphate and phosphate become adenosine triphosphate)! So in order to go where it wants, H+ has to physically make another molecule (ATPase) make ATP to pass through the gate!
This is actually an electrochemical current – so you’re not entirely wrong saying we turn food into electricity, but we mainly use that electricity to make ATP. We can then use that ATP to do things, including pumping ions (H+, Na+, Cl-, Ca²+ whatever we need) to create new electrochemical gradients and create currents, e.g. In neurons.
By the way, I didn’t choose the image of a turn style at random. ATPase actually physically turns! In an experiment where magnetic probes were attached to ATPase, electromagnet were used to create a spinning magnetic field that turned the ATPase and converted ADP and P to ATP! Even cooler, when they spun them the other way, it reversed, turning ATP into ADP and P! (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2026)
This is the most fundamentally important reaction in life as we know it, and it’s why alkaline hydrothermal vents are currently one of the best (if not the best) ideas as to where life began, because the electrochemical gradients can form spontaneously from inert chemicals WITH a membrane! (https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro1991)
Edited for corrections and clarity.
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