Metabolism Process: Catabolism vs Anabolism

Catabolism: The set of metabolic pathways that breaks down molecules into smaller units to release energy. 

Krebs Cycle - Acetyl CoA produces ATP, NADH, and FADH.

Glycolysis - Where glucose is broken down into pyruvate molecules, ATP and NADH are produced.

ETC (Electron Transport Chain) transports electrons when they undergo chemiosmosis, as a result ATP is produced. 

Anabolism: It is a metabolic process that uses energy from the sun or ATP to synthesize a large molecule from smaller molecules.

Calvin Cycle - Where carbon fixation takes place and it uses ATP/NADPH to form G3P.

Cyclic - The Cyclic process uses P700 from the sun to produce to form ATP.

Non Cyclic - The Non-Cyclic process uses P680 and P700 from the sun to form ATP and NADPH.

Metabolism: The sum of all chemical reactions that occur in the cell (anabolic/catabolic processes)

ROM Trip

On friday we had the chance to go to the ROM Museum and University Of Toronto for two lectures. We saw some interesting animals mostly ranging from 76 million years ago to present. Also, we had a tour guide in ROM which I think really changed my perspective towards the museum and the different things presented to us. The tour guide gave us some background stories about some of the interesting animals, and I found the "Passenger Pigeons" the most interesting to talk about.

These Passenger Pigeons caught my attention the most because of their exctinction due to recent human activities. The Passenger Pigeons were once one of the most abundant birds in North America and they come from the French word passager which means to"pass by". The tour guide gave us some general information about these pigeons and finally went into details. She said that there was once 3 to 5 billion of these pigeons in America alone. She also added, the exctinction of these birds were due to habitat loss which led to a mass deforestation. They were also commercialized as a cheap food for the slave in the 19th century. There were some attempts to save these birds by breeding the surviving captive pigeons were not successful. The passenger pigeon needs a large number of optimum breeding conditions. It was not possible to reestablish the species with a few captive birds and eventually, small captive flocks weakened and died. The last Passenger Pigeon was "Martha" which was named after Martha Washington. She died at the end of Zoological Garden and was donated to Smithsonian Institution where her body was mounted for display. After we heard the story of these pigeons I personally felt depressed because it changed the way I thought about nature in general and what humans to our nature and habitat. In my opinion this story should be shared around to raise awareness about the extinction of different animals around the world due to the human activities.