Chemistry & Life

.....for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
Psalm 139:14

"Consider the element carbon (C)—the most unique element of all the chemical elements in the Periodic Table. It is a nonmetal having unlimited capacity to participate in every known type of covalent chemical bonding (i.e., pairs of electrons shared between atoms) which unite atoms of the same kind to each other and to other kinds of atoms as well. This feature, called catenation, is virtually unlimited only for the element carbon, making possible the wide diversity of organic molecules needed for life.

Other elements, such as silicon (Si), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S), phosphorus (P), etc., display some very limited capacities for catenation, but do not even come close to rivaling the catenation ability of C. 

---Without this unique feature, the formation of such essential biomolecules as proteins, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), cellulose, etc., would be impossible.

Elements such as carbon (C), nitrogen (O), sulfur (S), phosphorus (P), and other nonmetals are called
Representative or Main Group Elements.

With the exception of oxygen, atoms of these elements are stable only when even numbers of their electrons unite in pairs; otherwise the presence of "unpaired" electrons impart chemical instability.

The element oxygen (O) exists freely in nature as the gaseous diatomic molecule O2. No substitute for oxygen exists which is similarly utilized in life processes. 

There are other Representative Elements which also occur as free diatomic molecules, e.g., hydrogen (H2), nitrogen (N2), fluorine

(F2), and chlorine (Cl2). 

However, O2 is the only molecule of this type possessing two unpaired electrons; the others all have paired electrons. In spite of this, O2 is still chemically stable. This singular notable exception to the electron-pair rule of stability for Representative Elements has no known explanation.

Furthermore, if it were not for the two unpaired electrons in O2, it would not be capable of binding to the iron (Fe) atoms in hemoglobin, with precisely the amount of energy needed to carry the O2 into the bloodstream and then release it. Some other molecules such as CO and NO can replace O2 in binding to hemoglobin, but they completely destroy the hemoglobin function.

Furthermore, in cytochrome oxidase, O2 reacts specifically with

electrons produced via an oxidation/reduction coupling mechanism between iron (Fe3+) and copper (Cu2+), whereby these are reduced to Fe2+ and Cu+ respectively, and again reoxidized to Fe3+ and Cu2+. This process occurs in cycles during the mechanism of O2 binding to iron in hemoglobin. 

No other substitutes for these two elements in this process exists. Life's requirements are precise.

The element zinc (Zn) is crucial in the formation of so-called zinc "finger" proteins, in which Zn2+ is bonded to pairs of cysteine and histidine amino acids, acting like "fingers" which interact with specific gene segments.

----Such characteristics defy the probability that any random evolutionary process could account for such specificity in design, attributable only to the Creator, God." 

ICR

PLUTO: Pluto Snakeskin

"Pluto has terrain like no other world, leaving scientists perplexed;
Enceladus’ activity is also inexplicable for “geologic time”.

More images of Pluto just came down from New Horizons on the 24th. Audible gasps come from the scientists, and from anyone seeing them for the first time. Most eye-catching of all is this “snakeskin” image of Pluto looking toward the terminator:
“What is that?” planetary scientist Barbara Cohen gasped, according to Nature News.

Other high-resolution images show apparent mountain tops protruding through vast, featureless plains of Sputnik Planum—yet the plains show corrugations suggestive of sublimation or wind erosion. At a larger scale, segments of the plains have polygonal edges suggestive of either convection or rotation of blocks then re-freezing. The highest-resolution image yet reveals “features that resemble dunes, the older shoreline of a shrinking glacial ice lake, and fractured, angular water ice mountains with sheer cliffs.”

The ridges in the “snakeskin” are tens of kilometers long, “giant features,” Nature says, running in parallel and covered with rust-colored material. Could wind have formed such features?

---So far, Pluto has turned out to be strikingly active for an icy world

5 billion kilometers from the Sun. 

Nitrogen glaciers swirl around the base of towering mountains that are held up by the sheer rigidity of ice at about −235 °C, 38 degrees above absolute zero.

---A new methane map has created a chicken-and-egg problem, NASA says; some places, like Sputnik Planum, have abundant methane, but the mountains and other areas have none.
The distribution of methane across the surface is anything but simple, with higher concentrations on bright plains and crater rims, but usually none in the centers of craters or darker regions. 

Outside of Sputnik Planum, methane ice appears to favor brighter areas, but scientists aren’t sure if that’s because methane is more likely to condense there or that its condensation brightens those regions.

The poor scientists were already reeling from September 10th’s photos and data. There’s a bit of a good-news, bad-news story in another Space.com article. 

The good news is that scientists have explained Charon’s red north pole: it’s material escaping from Pluto’s atmosphere. 

The bad news (for evolutionary cosmologists) is that Pluto’s atmosphere is finite and can’t keep painting Charon for billions of years." CEH

These see the works of the LORD, and His wonders... 

Psalm 107:24