Elements & Atoms
The four elements that make up about 96% of living matter
What are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen?
A bond formed by the sharing of electrons
What is a covalent bond?
Water resists temperature change because of this property
What is high specific heat?
A solution with a pH below 7 is considered this
What is acidic?
The four major classes of biological macromolecules
What are carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids?
The smallest unit of an element that retains its properties
What is an atom?
A weak attraction between a partially positive hydrogen and a partially negative atom
What is a hydrogen bond?
The attraction of water molecules to each other
What is cohesion?
The pH of pure water
What is 7?
The monomers of proteins
What are amino acids?
An atom’s charge is determined by the balance between these two subatomic particles
What are protons and electrons?
When one atom pulls electrons more strongly than another, the bond is described as this
What is a polar covalent bond?
Water’s ability to dissolve many substances is due to this
What is polarity?
Increasing this ion concentration lowers pH
What are hydrogen ions (H⁺)?
The bond that links amino acids together
What is a peptide bond?
Atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons
What are isotopes?
Bonds formed by the attraction between oppositely charged ions
What are ionic bonds?
When water molecules stick to other surfaces, it’s called this
What is adhesion?
Substances that minimize changes in pH
What are buffers?
Monomers of nucleic acids
What are nucleotides?
Why carbon is able to form such a wide variety of molecules
What is its ability to form four covalent bonds?
How hydrogen bonds contribute to water’s properties in living systems
What are cohesion, adhesion, or surface tension?
The reason ice floats in liquid water
What is that solid water is less dense due to hydrogen bonding?
The blood buffer system that maintains human pH
What is the carbonic acid–bicarbonate buffer system?
The process that builds polymers by removing water
What is dehydration synthesis?