Some additional reading on Energetics (Module 5)

Diffusion and Transport

• Transport of Small Molecules - a hyperactive site to help you understand membrane transport phenomena
• A good (interactive) diffusion tutorial from UCLA
• Animated version of diffusion.
• Animation of active transport, from YouTube.
• A local tutorial to help you sort out diffusion, osmosis, and other cellular transport phenomena.
• A tabular summary of cellular respiration - for review
• Membrane Transport Mechanisms - a chapter from the MIT BioHypertextbook
• Cell Membranes - Learn about membrane properties and osmosis, from the U.of Minnesota

Respiration and photosynthesis

• Respiration- good explanations and even a sample quiz!
• Extracting Energy from Glucose - Explanations and diagrams to help you understand aerobic and anaerobic metabolism
• Glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle - An overview
• An animated look at Glycolysis
• An animated look at the Krebs Cycle
• An animated look at mitochondrial electron transfer phosphorylation
• Photosynthesis- Explanations about this unique process, at varying levels of complexity. From Arizona State University.
• Photosynthesis explained - a gorgeous video from the Virtual Cell folks at Harvard University
• Photosynthesis -You read the book, now you can see "The movie." But you'll have to wait if you want the video!
• Do-it-yourself Glycolysis - An award-winning tutorial from The University of Leeds in the UK
• Even More Photosynthesis - An HTML Tutorial on the topic.
• A photosynthesis tutorial for your own PC - Download this zip file, unzip it into its own subdirectory, and run the pc-tutor.exe program.  An excellent tutorial for the University of Illinois.
• The light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis in animated form.
• The light-independent (dark) reactions of photosynthesis in animated form.
• ATP synthase in action - a stunning animation showing how protein conformational changes, driven by a proton gradient across a membrane, are used to generate ATP in organisms from bacteria to man
• Another animation of ATP synthase in action, from YouTube!

Energetics and sustainability - the human factors

• Food and Water for human populations - Some very enlightening maps from the Global Education Project
• Revising Carrying Capacity for the Human Population - Ecological Economics Primer
• Calculate your own "ecological footprint".
• Science, Sustainability, and the Human Prospect - Essay in Science, (August 9, 2002) by Peter Raven, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Read this if you want the facts, not the fantasy, about use of the worlds resources by the current and future human population.
• When will the top blow off? - A thought-provoking essay on human population trends, resource consumption, and what we can do about it.
• Sustainability - A businessman's perspective on why this is an important issue. If you learn nothing else this semester, you should understand that "In all essential respects, down to the tiniest molecule, we humans have the same structure as endangered birds of prey, seals,  and otters. In a biological sense we are neither the masters of nature nor its stewards, but a piece of nature ourselves, just like seals and otters. And if these species have become threatened with extinction in the space of a few decades because of our environmental pollution, we too are threatened. We have enough knowledge to say that the only way of reversing this process is to avoid introducing substances into nature that it cannot process and to learn to live cyclically just like cells in nature." (PDF file, 841 KB)
• EarthTrends - The Environmental Information Portal, offering searchable databases, data tables, country profiles, maps, and feature articles in ten topical sections.
• Carbon Dioxide in the Earth's Atmosphere - Updated observations from the Mauna Loa Observatory
• Carbon Dioxide Reference Service - An incredible information source from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; check out the Carbon Dioxide FAQ!
• Clearing the Air on Global Warming - Tired of pseudoscientific blathering about global warming and why we don't really need to worry about it?  then check this site for background, data, and recent news stories
• Global Climate Change FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) - From the US Government's Global Climate Research Information Office
• In the End, What Does it Matter? - Can agriculture continue to feed and clothe the world? An excellent online perspective from UC Davis.
• EPA - Global Climate Change - Find out facts and projections for global climate change, including predictions of impacts on plants, agriculture, and wildlife.
• Global Change Data - A searchable index from the US Dept. of Agriculture
• Animated guide to global climate change and the Greenhouse Effect - From the BBC
• Effects of elevated CO₂ on tallgrass prairie

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Kansas State University
November 5, 2009