July 30, 2016 Saturday
Influenza kills 250,000 to 500,000 human apes every year.
The 1918 influenza pandemic killed 50 to 100 million humans in just 2years.
The butchery of 4 years of World War 1 was 38 million or so.
The virus is merely a single strand of RNA (not even a DNA, and not double stranded) within
a wall of glycoprotein.
Unlike in USA, in our mahan Bharat, the influenza strikes upon us twice.
One in the monsoons starting June and one in the winters starting November.
My mother just survived a nasty attack of influenza which had precipitated a severe lower
respiratory tract infection and accompanying bronchospasm.
She is slowly weaning herself off the oxygen (and not the ventilator mind you).
She is down from 3 to 1 oral antibiotics.
Her steroids are also being tapered down.
My concern is always the next attack.
Bombay is a fertile ground for most types of germs, specially the germs which get
transmitted via the airborne route and through hand-to-eye, hand-to-nose and
hand-to-mouth transmission.
Public hygiene and health awareness being abysmally low.
Gibbs's 300-page treatise is often referred to as the Gibbs's "Equilibrium" paper.
It is considered one of the landmark achievements in science of 1800s.
It laid the foundation for the physical chemistry and thermodynamics.
Now just try to understand how critically the concept of Gibbs free energy is interlinked with entropy, the second law of thermodynamics and the billions of biochemical reactions that go on in our cellular machinery.
A chemical reaction will (or can) occur spontaneously if the change in the total entropy of the universe that would be caused by the reaction is non negative.
In essence, as per the second law of thermodynamics (the most unshakeable law we have come to know), for systems reacting at STP (standard temperature and pressure),
There is a natural tendency to achieve a minimum of Gibbs free energy (or maximum entropy).
Gibbs free energy is a (negative) surrogate for the change in total entropy of the universe.
G(p,t) = U + pV - TS
G being the Gibbs free energy
U the internal energy in joule
S is the entropy in joule per kelvin
U can see S appears in negative coefficient with respect to G.
A reaction with positive Gibbs free energy will not proceed spontaneously.
But we saw this happening in the biological systems like our Electron Transport Chain coupled with proton transfer across the membranes.
Both in photosynthesis and cellular level oxidation (and ATP synthesis).
This happens because energy inputs from sources like the sun and other exothermic reactions (like oceanic beds thermal vents) are "coupled" with these reactions that are not entropically favoured (which have Gibbs free energy above zero).
Once the "coupling" is taken into account, the total entropy of the universe increases.
This coupling allows reactions such as photosynthesis, ETC chain, cellular respiration, DNA syntheses to happen without violating the second law of thermodynamics.
The second law of thermodynamics is virtually the holy grail of the entire scientific edifice.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Influenza kills 250,000 to 500,000 human apes every year.
The 1918 influenza pandemic killed 50 to 100 million humans in just 2years.
The butchery of 4 years of World War 1 was 38 million or so.
The virus is merely a single strand of RNA (not even a DNA, and not double stranded) within
a wall of glycoprotein.
Unlike in USA, in our mahan Bharat, the influenza strikes upon us twice.
One in the monsoons starting June and one in the winters starting November.
My mother just survived a nasty attack of influenza which had precipitated a severe lower
respiratory tract infection and accompanying bronchospasm.
She is slowly weaning herself off the oxygen (and not the ventilator mind you).
She is down from 3 to 1 oral antibiotics.
Her steroids are also being tapered down.
My concern is always the next attack.
Bombay is a fertile ground for most types of germs, specially the germs which get
transmitted via the airborne route and through hand-to-eye, hand-to-nose and
hand-to-mouth transmission.
Public hygiene and health awareness being abysmally low.
Gibbs's 300-page treatise is often referred to as the Gibbs's "Equilibrium" paper.
It is considered one of the landmark achievements in science of 1800s.
It laid the foundation for the physical chemistry and thermodynamics.
Now just try to understand how critically the concept of Gibbs free energy is interlinked with entropy, the second law of thermodynamics and the billions of biochemical reactions that go on in our cellular machinery.
A chemical reaction will (or can) occur spontaneously if the change in the total entropy of the universe that would be caused by the reaction is non negative.
In essence, as per the second law of thermodynamics (the most unshakeable law we have come to know), for systems reacting at STP (standard temperature and pressure),
There is a natural tendency to achieve a minimum of Gibbs free energy (or maximum entropy).
Gibbs free energy is a (negative) surrogate for the change in total entropy of the universe.
G(p,t) = U + pV - TS
G being the Gibbs free energy
U the internal energy in joule
S is the entropy in joule per kelvin
U can see S appears in negative coefficient with respect to G.
A reaction with positive Gibbs free energy will not proceed spontaneously.
But we saw this happening in the biological systems like our Electron Transport Chain coupled with proton transfer across the membranes.
Both in photosynthesis and cellular level oxidation (and ATP synthesis).
This happens because energy inputs from sources like the sun and other exothermic reactions (like oceanic beds thermal vents) are "coupled" with these reactions that are not entropically favoured (which have Gibbs free energy above zero).
Once the "coupling" is taken into account, the total entropy of the universe increases.
This coupling allows reactions such as photosynthesis, ETC chain, cellular respiration, DNA syntheses to happen without violating the second law of thermodynamics.
The second law of thermodynamics is virtually the holy grail of the entire scientific edifice.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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