BIOL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Thermodynamics, Atp Hydrolysis

• School: McGill University
• Department: Biology
• Course: BIOL 201
• Professor: Gary Brouhard

Document Summary

Animals do not consume energy 1st law of thermodynamics aka the law of conservation of energy. In an isolated system, the total amount of energy remains constant over time. Living organisms convert energy from one form to another: metabolism is the science of energy conversions, photons converted to chemical bonds which are converted to heat and work. Caveat 2: organisms store energy temporarily during activity. Atp is the energy currency of cells. Organisms devote ~20% of their genomes to metabolism. Second law of thermodynamics: an isolated system always tends towards disorder. Living organisms convert high quality energy to low quality energy. The quality of energy depends on how much is free .