Lab 2

Pre-Lab Questions

1. Nitrogen fixation is a natural process by which inert or unreactive forms of nitrogen are transformed into usable nitrogen. Why is this process important to life?

Answer. Nitrogen fixation, natural and synthetic, is crucial for all forms of life because nitrogen is required to biosynthesize basic building blocks of plants, animals and other life forms of life. Farmers rely on nitrogen fixation is for agriculture and the manufacture of fertilizer. It is also an important process in the manufacture of explosives. Nitrogen fixation occurs naturally in the air by means of lightning. Nitrogen fixation also refers to other biological conversions of nitrogen.

2. Given what you have learned about the hydrogen bonding shared between nucleic acids in DNA, which pair is more stable under increasing heat: adenine and thymine, or cytosine and guanine? Explain why.

Answer: (A and T pair up and C and G pair up) Cytosine (C) and guanine (G) are more stable under increasing heat because C and G have three hydrogen bonds where Adenine (A) and Thymine (T) have only two hydrogen bonds. The more hydrogen bonds there are, the more stable the nucleotides are. Greater bond stability requires more heat energy to separate the bonds, and since G≡C have more hydrogen bonds than A=T, they are consequently more stable under increasing heat.

3. Which of the following is not an organic molecule; methane (CH4), fructose (C6H12O6), rosane (C20H36), or ammonia (NH3)? How do you know?

Answer: Fructose and Rosane are organic molecules since they have the presence of Carbon, which carbon is a building block of all organic molecules. Ammonia has Nitrogen and Hydrogen in it but does not contain Carbon and would be considered an inorganic molecule.

Experiment 1: Testing for Proteins

|Table 1: Testing for Proteins Results...