This is the post I've been promising on my community plans. I know it's taken me a while but I haven't had anything in place until now, and there is still a lot of things that are shifting.
This will be a more personal post than I usually do. I hope that it may be useful to others searching for community as well as letting those who follow this blog know what I will be doing and why. Among other things (and this even sounds crazy to me) I'll be quitting my job, leaving my home, and traveling around the country. In otherwords, I'll be jobless, homeless, and I don't even like traveling.
In order to understand why I would do this to myself, you need to know that my goal in life (more or less for the last 25 years) has been to live in a community where people were connected and committed to building something together. I had this at least once when I lived in a community I helped build that lasted five years in the nineties. I've decided that I really want to live in a community like this somewhere in New England, if possible, or at least on the east coast.
My most recent attempt has not turned out to be what I wanted. There have been some parallels here with what happened with an attempt to build community in northern New England a few years back that made me realize that I need more than just my own willingness and efforts to build community. I need other people with the passion to do this and at least one with some real experience. I won't do it again without both those pieces--that's a public promise. At this point I'm looking for either a community to join or some people to build one with.
There are two wonderful communities in Virginia that are examples of what I want: Twin Oaks and Acorn (see my last post, Communities of Communities, for more information on them and other communities I mention in this post). Both communities require a three week visit to apply for membership. I knew that Twin Oaks had a long waiting list so I contacted Acorn, initially for a three week visit in July. They approved it but said they were very full and that even if I was accepted, it would be at least six months before they had an opening. (Note--in some ways this is a good sign; the fact that both Acorn and Twin Oaks are full with long lists means there are lots of people who want this kind of community.)
At that point I heard about an interesting community in the midwest looking for people and decided to apply there instead. Unfortunately, it turned out to not be a good fit. So now I am back to visiting and applying at Acorn.
And it looks like I will spend the fall traveling. I'm beginning with the Communities Conference at Twin Oaks on Labor Day weekend (hoping that there I can connect with some folks really interested in community) followed by my three week visit to Acorn nearby, now rescheduled for right after the conference. I will apply for membership there, but even if they accept me, I won't be able to stay. So I will come back to Boston briefly before leaving to visit a very close friend in Oakland, California (and since I don't like flying, I will be going across country by train or bus, a four day journey in either direction). I will spend about a week with my friend sometime in October (and may stop to visit the northeast Missouri communities--again, see my last post for details on them--on the way back) and then I'm now trying to schedule a three week visit at Twin Oaks in November. I hope to be back in Boston for the holidays, probably staying with friends and family, and maybe by that time I'll have some idea what I'll be doing in 2013. My goal for next year is to either get into one of the Virginia communities (Twin Oaks, Acorn, Living Energy Farm, 'Chubby Squirrels', or something else that emerges) or be building a community in New England with committed people.
What makes this really difficult is that I'm now 60, and soon to be 61. But I know this is what I need to do. I believe in the social change ideas I talk about in this blog and, for me, the way to put them into practice is a community that models these ideas. If it takes me the rest of my life to find or build that community, well, that's what I need to do.
Quote of the day: "...hope is not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or a cognitive process. ... hope is a combination of setting goals, having the tenacity and perseverence to pursue them, and believing in our own abilities. ... Toleration for disappointment, determination, and a belief in self are at the heart of hope." - Brené Brown
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Communities of Communities
I've written about the Federation of Egalitarian Communities in my post on Egalitarian Communities, 10/22/08, and about Twin Oaks in a post entitled Real Models 1:Twin Oaks, 9/30/10. What I want to write about here is what is happening in Louisa County, Virginia, where Twin Oaks is located.
Twin Oaks has been around for forty-five years as of this year and has a population of about a hundred people (adults and children). While this would be impressive enough, in 1993 some folks from Twin Oaks helped found a second community, called Acorn. (Yes, this is a spinoff reference.) Acorn is located in Mineral, a town over from Twin Oaks, and now has about 30 members. Last year, with help from Twin Oaks and Acorn, work was begun on Living Energy Farm. This will be a community, education center, and farm which will also be a demonstration of how it is possible to live without fossil fuels. (For more on this see my series on life Beyond Fuels, starting with Beyond Fuels 1: New Living and Old Learnings, 11/23/11.) Twin Oaks and Acorn are members of the FEC and Living Energy Farm is a Community in Dialogue with them. All are located close to one another in Louisa County.
Paxus Calta who lives at Twin Oaks appears to be planning to organize another community, which he also wants in the area and in the FEC, which he is alternatively calling Dancing Squirrels and Chubby Squirrels. I normally wouldn't pay a lot of attention to someone who has an idea for a community, but given the size and stability of Twin Oaks and Acorn, with their help, this (and Living Energy Farm) will probably succeed. In fact, at this point, Twin Oaks and Acorn both have long waiting lists of people who want to get into them. The waiting list at Acorn is at least six months and I suspect the waiting list at Twin Oaks is a lot longer.
I find what's happening in Louisa County very inspiring. There's a growing community of communities there within a few miles of each other, backed by the durability of Twin Oaks (and now Acorn) and an apparent real longing for community, as evidenced by the waiting lists.
But what's really amazing is that Louisa County isn't the only place this is happening. In Rutledge, a small town in northeastern Missouri (population 109) there are also three growing, thriving intentional communities that are working together.
Sandhill Farm is the oldest, started in by four 24-year olds in 1974, now at maybe eight members. That may not seem impressive, but the fact that Sandhill was there and supportive encouraged a small group of students from California who wanted to build an ecovillage to settle there in 1997 (incidentally, the group began to converge in 1993, the same year Acorn started). Dancing Rabbit now has sixty-something members, residents, and children. They are talking about wanting 500 to 1000, but even having sixty now is pretty good. Among other things, Dancing Rabbit wants to have a "Society of Communities". One community within Dancing Rabbit is Skyhouse. Dancing Rabbit isn't an FEC community but Skyhouse is (and so is Sandhill). Then, in 2005, Red Earth Farms, "an intentional community of homesteads" bought 76 acres of land adjacent to Dancing Rabbit. There's now about seventeen adults and children living there. From what I understand, there is a lot of traffic back and forth between the three communities--and a lot of support for each other. And, not far away, in La Plata, Missouri, is the Possibility Alliance, very interesting community of nine folks that has some links with the three Rutledge communities. In addition, some students from Colby College are making a film about the three communities called "The Rhythm of Rutledge".
Paxus, the blogger I wrote about above, has written a post called "The best parts of America" where he talks about all these communities (except the one he's starting) as well as some of the other FEC related communities around the country. It's a nice overview of this process.
What is so exciting to me is the building energy in Louisa and Rutledge. Far from the urban mainstream, folks are gathering (about 130--so far--in VA and nearing a hundred in northeastern MO) and supporting each other in building communities. The long waiting lists for the communities in Virginia shows the hunger for this and the durability of the communities. The fact that Twin Oaks has also been running strong since 1967 is an interesting answer to "Whatever happened to all those communes from the sixties?" I think it's also significant that Sandhill has been hanging in since the seventies and has managed to attract and support two other communities in their small town. Building strong vibrant egalitarian community is possible, and even very successful, at least in two places in the US.
In my next post I'll talk about some of my own plans around community.
Addendum (6/12/12): I finally found a piece of info that I was looking for. I never really understood why the folks at Red Earth Farms decided to create something separate from Dancing Rabbit. From Laird Schaub's (of Sandhill) blog Laird's Commentary on Community and Consensus in a post labeled 'Culture Forming in Northeast Missouri':
"When some DR members were unhappy about the community's adamancy about maintaining a high population density, they started the spin-off community of Red Earth Farms, on 76 adjoining acres in 2007. Red Earth is based on a more agrarian, homestead model of land development."
Quote of the Day: "Why We Exist--Because we share so much, and because we are committed to a vision of community which transcends our individual groups, we have joined together to cooperate on publications, conferences, recruitment efforts, community support systems including health care, and a variety of other mutually supportive activities. Our aim is not only to help each other; we want to help more people discover the advantages of a communal alternative, and to promote the evolution of a more egalitarian world." - from the FEC website
Twin Oaks has been around for forty-five years as of this year and has a population of about a hundred people (adults and children). While this would be impressive enough, in 1993 some folks from Twin Oaks helped found a second community, called Acorn. (Yes, this is a spinoff reference.) Acorn is located in Mineral, a town over from Twin Oaks, and now has about 30 members. Last year, with help from Twin Oaks and Acorn, work was begun on Living Energy Farm. This will be a community, education center, and farm which will also be a demonstration of how it is possible to live without fossil fuels. (For more on this see my series on life Beyond Fuels, starting with Beyond Fuels 1: New Living and Old Learnings, 11/23/11.) Twin Oaks and Acorn are members of the FEC and Living Energy Farm is a Community in Dialogue with them. All are located close to one another in Louisa County.
Paxus Calta who lives at Twin Oaks appears to be planning to organize another community, which he also wants in the area and in the FEC, which he is alternatively calling Dancing Squirrels and Chubby Squirrels. I normally wouldn't pay a lot of attention to someone who has an idea for a community, but given the size and stability of Twin Oaks and Acorn, with their help, this (and Living Energy Farm) will probably succeed. In fact, at this point, Twin Oaks and Acorn both have long waiting lists of people who want to get into them. The waiting list at Acorn is at least six months and I suspect the waiting list at Twin Oaks is a lot longer.
I find what's happening in Louisa County very inspiring. There's a growing community of communities there within a few miles of each other, backed by the durability of Twin Oaks (and now Acorn) and an apparent real longing for community, as evidenced by the waiting lists.
But what's really amazing is that Louisa County isn't the only place this is happening. In Rutledge, a small town in northeastern Missouri (population 109) there are also three growing, thriving intentional communities that are working together.
Sandhill Farm is the oldest, started in by four 24-year olds in 1974, now at maybe eight members. That may not seem impressive, but the fact that Sandhill was there and supportive encouraged a small group of students from California who wanted to build an ecovillage to settle there in 1997 (incidentally, the group began to converge in 1993, the same year Acorn started). Dancing Rabbit now has sixty-something members, residents, and children. They are talking about wanting 500 to 1000, but even having sixty now is pretty good. Among other things, Dancing Rabbit wants to have a "Society of Communities". One community within Dancing Rabbit is Skyhouse. Dancing Rabbit isn't an FEC community but Skyhouse is (and so is Sandhill). Then, in 2005, Red Earth Farms, "an intentional community of homesteads" bought 76 acres of land adjacent to Dancing Rabbit. There's now about seventeen adults and children living there. From what I understand, there is a lot of traffic back and forth between the three communities--and a lot of support for each other. And, not far away, in La Plata, Missouri, is the Possibility Alliance, very interesting community of nine folks that has some links with the three Rutledge communities. In addition, some students from Colby College are making a film about the three communities called "The Rhythm of Rutledge".
Paxus, the blogger I wrote about above, has written a post called "The best parts of America" where he talks about all these communities (except the one he's starting) as well as some of the other FEC related communities around the country. It's a nice overview of this process.
What is so exciting to me is the building energy in Louisa and Rutledge. Far from the urban mainstream, folks are gathering (about 130--so far--in VA and nearing a hundred in northeastern MO) and supporting each other in building communities. The long waiting lists for the communities in Virginia shows the hunger for this and the durability of the communities. The fact that Twin Oaks has also been running strong since 1967 is an interesting answer to "Whatever happened to all those communes from the sixties?" I think it's also significant that Sandhill has been hanging in since the seventies and has managed to attract and support two other communities in their small town. Building strong vibrant egalitarian community is possible, and even very successful, at least in two places in the US.
In my next post I'll talk about some of my own plans around community.
Addendum (6/12/12): I finally found a piece of info that I was looking for. I never really understood why the folks at Red Earth Farms decided to create something separate from Dancing Rabbit. From Laird Schaub's (of Sandhill) blog Laird's Commentary on Community and Consensus in a post labeled 'Culture Forming in Northeast Missouri':
"When some DR members were unhappy about the community's adamancy about maintaining a high population density, they started the spin-off community of Red Earth Farms, on 76 adjoining acres in 2007. Red Earth is based on a more agrarian, homestead model of land development."
Quote of the Day: "Why We Exist--Because we share so much, and because we are committed to a vision of community which transcends our individual groups, we have joined together to cooperate on publications, conferences, recruitment efforts, community support systems including health care, and a variety of other mutually supportive activities. Our aim is not only to help each other; we want to help more people discover the advantages of a communal alternative, and to promote the evolution of a more egalitarian world." - from the FEC website
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Interlude: Next Changes
I'm still reading my biology book but I'm not sure whether I'll continue this series, or when I will if I do.
Several things have been happening. The first is that I kept a copy of all the posts that I've written on a flashdrive that I kept in my pocket. Some of it was backed up, but there was much of it that wasn't. Then one day the flashdrive was missing. I still haven't found it and that's put a crimp in my desires to write lots of posts.
More importantly, about halfway through this first year of my latest community venture, I realized that it wasn't working. I'm not happy about this but I don't think that continuing on, as is, makes sense. Neither does starting over. I've done this several times and it hasn't worked. There comes a point where I need to pay attention and decide that it's time to go in a different direction.
In essence, instead of trying to create community (at least for now) I'm looking at trying to join an already functioning community. Part of the reason is to learn from what's working (as well as to perhaps help a community or two work even better) and part of it is to look for others with experience living in community. I will not (and this is a promise to myself) try again to start building a community alone or only with people who haven't done it before. I need to have others with experience to do this with--and, I think the way to find others with experience is to get active in the communities movement.
Unfortunately, this is a challenge, as I'm now sixty and starting over, especially since it will involve traveling and some short term community situations (a year or two, is what I'm thinking). It may involve more than one situation before I find the folks I'm looking for. This isn't exciting and it is risky, but I don't have any better ideas.
What I want to do is to build or live in community in New England, but the kind of community I want (simple, sustainable, communal, and egalitarian) doesn't exist here. What it looks like I'll be doing is leaving New England, hopefully not for too long and not going too, too far.
Meanwhile, my next post will be on what I see as one of the most hopeful developments in building this kind of community: communities of communities.
Quote of the Day: “Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.” - Simone de Beauvoir
Several things have been happening. The first is that I kept a copy of all the posts that I've written on a flashdrive that I kept in my pocket. Some of it was backed up, but there was much of it that wasn't. Then one day the flashdrive was missing. I still haven't found it and that's put a crimp in my desires to write lots of posts.
More importantly, about halfway through this first year of my latest community venture, I realized that it wasn't working. I'm not happy about this but I don't think that continuing on, as is, makes sense. Neither does starting over. I've done this several times and it hasn't worked. There comes a point where I need to pay attention and decide that it's time to go in a different direction.
In essence, instead of trying to create community (at least for now) I'm looking at trying to join an already functioning community. Part of the reason is to learn from what's working (as well as to perhaps help a community or two work even better) and part of it is to look for others with experience living in community. I will not (and this is a promise to myself) try again to start building a community alone or only with people who haven't done it before. I need to have others with experience to do this with--and, I think the way to find others with experience is to get active in the communities movement.
Unfortunately, this is a challenge, as I'm now sixty and starting over, especially since it will involve traveling and some short term community situations (a year or two, is what I'm thinking). It may involve more than one situation before I find the folks I'm looking for. This isn't exciting and it is risky, but I don't have any better ideas.
What I want to do is to build or live in community in New England, but the kind of community I want (simple, sustainable, communal, and egalitarian) doesn't exist here. What it looks like I'll be doing is leaving New England, hopefully not for too long and not going too, too far.
Meanwhile, my next post will be on what I see as one of the most hopeful developments in building this kind of community: communities of communities.
Quote of the Day: “Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.” - Simone de Beauvoir
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Biology 101: Photosynthesis
Biologists define us humans, as well as almost all other animals, fungi, and even many bacteria as heterotrophs--which means we can't make our own food. Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, on the other hand, are defined as autotrophs, or more specifically, photoautotrophs, which means that they make their own food from carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight.
We get our nutrition from plants. Even extreme carnivores who might eat nothing but meat really get their nutrition from plants--it's just that they get it by eating animals who eat plants, or even animals who eat animals who eat plants. This is what's meant by eating lower on the food chain. At the base of that chain is plants (and algae, etc).
In my last post (Cellular Respiration, 5/10/12), I talked about why we need oxygen and ended with the question: 'where does the oxygen come from?' From plants, of course. Plants and algae and cyanobacteria.
It's believed that Earth's original atmosphere was mostly methane, and the first organisms were anaerobic. Cynobacteria came along and began giving off oxygen, which triggered what is sometimes called the 'Great Oxygenation Event' or the 'Oxygen Catastrophe'--where some of the oxygen caused rust and mineral formation, some of the oxygen combined with the methane to form carbon dioxide, and some of the oxygen stayed in free form. This killed off much of the aerobic population and allowed the formation of oxygen breathing creatures.
Plants (etc) keep oxygen in the atmosphere and, as I said, feed us as well. In my last post I gave the formula: C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O, which means we take in glucose (and other carbohydrates) and oxygen and break them down into carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis allows plants to do the opposite, to take carbon dioxide and water and using the energy from sunlight, make them into glucose and oxygen. The formula for photosynthesis is the reverse: 6 CO2 + 6 H2O → C6H12O6 + 6 O2.
Photosynthesis is a two part operation. First the plant collects light using the 'light-dependent reactions', then it feeds the generated energy into what's called the Calvin cycle or even the 'dark reactions' (because light isn't needed for this).
So here's another question, similar to why do we need oxygen and where does the oxygen come from: Why are plants green?
Light, as you may know, is made of a spectrum of colors. We see black when something absorbs the entire spectrum of light, and we see white when something rejects (or reflects) the full spectrum. The spectrum goes from red to blue and purple--and apparently the colors at either end have the most useful energy for the plants. The plants look green to us because that's what's in the middle and what the plants can't use. The chloroplasts of the plants are filled with pigments that pull in the red and the blue and reflect back green (chlorophyll), as well as pigments that pull in other parts of the spectrum and reflect back yellow (xanthophyll) or orange (carotene)--this is why, when the chlorophyll disappears in the fall, leaves turn yellow or orange.
All of these pigments collect photons from the light and pass them to a 'Reaction Center' which uses the energy to excite electrons from the hydrogen in water (H2O) to send along an electron transport chain (similar to what I talked about in my last post). The protons are sent through various pumps and the oxygen is given off as a waste product. (Yes, this is the oxygen we breathe.) It also uses the energy from the electron transport and the proton powered pumps to create ATP and NADPH--which, as I explained in my last post, are just ways of storing energy.
The Calvin Cycle is sort of like the Krebs cycle in reverse. It takes in carbon dioxide and the reconstituted hydrogen from the electron transport system (and the energy from the ATP and NADPH created by the system) and uses them all to form sugars.
All this happens in the chloroplasts of plants. It also happens in the chloroplasts of algae. Something similar happens in cyanobacteria, but they don't have chloroplasts--in fact, the theory is that cyanobacteria were absorbed by the ancestors of plants and algae and became the chloroplasts.
Again, plants take in carbon dioxide and water and give off oxygen as well as creating sugars, starches, proteins, etc. We breathe in the oxygen and eat the nutrients from plants and breathe out carbon dioxide and pee out water--which is what the plants can use. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are connected in a cycle that basically keeps the whole planet alive. This is why I think learning this stuff is important. As I heard someone once say, every time you breathe, you should thank a plant.
Quote of the Day: "On a global scale, the collective productivity of the minute chloroplasts is prodigious; it is estimated that photosynthesis makes about 160 billion metric tons of carbohydrates per year... No other chemical process on the planet can match the output of photosynthesis. And no other process is more important than photosynthesis for the welfare of life on Earth." - Neil Campbell and Jane Reece
We get our nutrition from plants. Even extreme carnivores who might eat nothing but meat really get their nutrition from plants--it's just that they get it by eating animals who eat plants, or even animals who eat animals who eat plants. This is what's meant by eating lower on the food chain. At the base of that chain is plants (and algae, etc).
In my last post (Cellular Respiration, 5/10/12), I talked about why we need oxygen and ended with the question: 'where does the oxygen come from?' From plants, of course. Plants and algae and cyanobacteria.
It's believed that Earth's original atmosphere was mostly methane, and the first organisms were anaerobic. Cynobacteria came along and began giving off oxygen, which triggered what is sometimes called the 'Great Oxygenation Event' or the 'Oxygen Catastrophe'--where some of the oxygen caused rust and mineral formation, some of the oxygen combined with the methane to form carbon dioxide, and some of the oxygen stayed in free form. This killed off much of the aerobic population and allowed the formation of oxygen breathing creatures.
Plants (etc) keep oxygen in the atmosphere and, as I said, feed us as well. In my last post I gave the formula: C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O, which means we take in glucose (and other carbohydrates) and oxygen and break them down into carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis allows plants to do the opposite, to take carbon dioxide and water and using the energy from sunlight, make them into glucose and oxygen. The formula for photosynthesis is the reverse: 6 CO2 + 6 H2O → C6H12O6 + 6 O2.
Photosynthesis is a two part operation. First the plant collects light using the 'light-dependent reactions', then it feeds the generated energy into what's called the Calvin cycle or even the 'dark reactions' (because light isn't needed for this).
So here's another question, similar to why do we need oxygen and where does the oxygen come from: Why are plants green?
Light, as you may know, is made of a spectrum of colors. We see black when something absorbs the entire spectrum of light, and we see white when something rejects (or reflects) the full spectrum. The spectrum goes from red to blue and purple--and apparently the colors at either end have the most useful energy for the plants. The plants look green to us because that's what's in the middle and what the plants can't use. The chloroplasts of the plants are filled with pigments that pull in the red and the blue and reflect back green (chlorophyll), as well as pigments that pull in other parts of the spectrum and reflect back yellow (xanthophyll) or orange (carotene)--this is why, when the chlorophyll disappears in the fall, leaves turn yellow or orange.
All of these pigments collect photons from the light and pass them to a 'Reaction Center' which uses the energy to excite electrons from the hydrogen in water (H2O) to send along an electron transport chain (similar to what I talked about in my last post). The protons are sent through various pumps and the oxygen is given off as a waste product. (Yes, this is the oxygen we breathe.) It also uses the energy from the electron transport and the proton powered pumps to create ATP and NADPH--which, as I explained in my last post, are just ways of storing energy.
The Calvin Cycle is sort of like the Krebs cycle in reverse. It takes in carbon dioxide and the reconstituted hydrogen from the electron transport system (and the energy from the ATP and NADPH created by the system) and uses them all to form sugars.
All this happens in the chloroplasts of plants. It also happens in the chloroplasts of algae. Something similar happens in cyanobacteria, but they don't have chloroplasts--in fact, the theory is that cyanobacteria were absorbed by the ancestors of plants and algae and became the chloroplasts.
Again, plants take in carbon dioxide and water and give off oxygen as well as creating sugars, starches, proteins, etc. We breathe in the oxygen and eat the nutrients from plants and breathe out carbon dioxide and pee out water--which is what the plants can use. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are connected in a cycle that basically keeps the whole planet alive. This is why I think learning this stuff is important. As I heard someone once say, every time you breathe, you should thank a plant.
Quote of the Day: "On a global scale, the collective productivity of the minute chloroplasts is prodigious; it is estimated that photosynthesis makes about 160 billion metric tons of carbohydrates per year... No other chemical process on the planet can match the output of photosynthesis. And no other process is more important than photosynthesis for the welfare of life on Earth." - Neil Campbell and Jane Reece
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Biology 101: Cellular Respiration
Take a deep breath. Now what just happened?
Okay, you took in air and the oxygen in it was absorbed by your lungs and travelled through your bloodstream to your cells. Now what? What do your cells want oxygen for?
Cells (as I put in my last post) are complex organisms, always in motion, always working. That work is powered by the mitochondia (also called 'the powerhouses of the cell'). The process of energy production that they do is called cellular respiration.
Cellular respiration is a process that converts a molecule of sugar (glucose)--or some other energy source: carbohydrate, protein, or fat--and six molecules of oxygen into six molecules of carbon dioxide and six molecules of water. (The chemical formula is C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O.) It actually consists of three processes: glycolysis, the citric acid cycle (aka the Krebs cycle), and something called oxidative phosphorylation (aka the electron transport chain).
Glycolysis is the process where glucose (or some other carbohydrate/protein/fat) is broken down into the chemical pyruvate. It takes place in the fluid of the cell (which is called the cytosol). This is done as a first step and is in itself a complex process that creates a small amount of energy in the form of molecules of ATP and NADH. Basically the cell uses these molecules as ways to store energy, sort of like little batteries that can be plugged in and used when energy is needed. Once glycolysis is complete a couple of things can happen.
The most likely (in our bodies, anyway) thing to happen next is that the pyruvate enters the citric acid cycle. This is a really complex circle of reactions that take the pyruvate and break it down into carbon dioxide and water. It takes place in the mitochondria in our cells and whether it happens or not is decided by whether there is oxygen available or not.
If there isn't oxygen available (either because this is happening in a muscle that can't get oxygen quickly enough or because we're talking about yeast or bacteria), alternatively cells can use fermentation, which creates a lot of waste products--lactic acid in the case of your muscles, and which is why they become sore after hard work, as well as what happens from the bacteria in yogurt, and alcohol in the case of yeast, and people drink the waste products.
Assuming that the citric acid cycle happens, a few more energy molecules (ATP, NADH, and FADH2) are created. But the real energy pay-off is from the third part of the respiration process. This is called oxidative phosphorylation which breaks down the hydrogen from the glucose (or whatever) into electrons and protons (which is all hydrogen is, an electron and a proton) and sends the electrons along an electron transport chain in the membrane of the mitochondrion (the singular of mitochonria) and pumps the protons back and forth through the membrane. The whole process of the electrons travelling along the transport system reminds me of electricity (ie, electrons flowing through a wire). And the process creates a whole lot of ATP, which is what powers all the work your cells do.
Now here's what keeps it going. At the end of that transport chain is a molecule of oxygen. Oxygen is, in this case, the electron acceptor--it's what attracts the electrons and keeps them flowing through the transport chain. I think of it almost like a magnet--it strongly attracts the electrons and keeps the whole thing running. When the electrons and protons arrive, they combine back to hydrogen and then combine with the oxygen to form water (H2O). Then you pee out the extra water (and breathe out the carbon dioxide created in the citric acid cycle).
I've quoted a couple of times the line that "you can only live 3 minutes without air, you can live 3 days without water, and you can live 3 weeks without food." (See Air, 5/7/09, and Water, 5/10/09.) We need water to keep everything fluid in our bodies. Here is why we need food and air. We need food for those molecules of glucose (etc) to start the process of cellular respiration. And we need air to supply the oxygen to finish the process of cellular respiration. And, as you can tell by the fact that we can make it three weeks without food, but only three minutes without air, we really need that oxygen.
So, now that you know why we need oxygen, another question is, where does the oxygen come from? That's the topic of my next post.
Quote of the Day: "...When your muscles are doing lots of work, they need lots of ATP. Your cells make ATP by doing cellular respiration. In order to make ATP, you need oxygen to accept electrons at your electron transport chain. So, as you use up your ATP in your muscles, you breathe faster to bring in more oxygen, so you can have more oxygen in you mitochondia to accept more electrons, to make more ATP. This is why you breathe.
"Everything you already knew about breathing, such as bringing oxygen to your lungs and having your red blood cells carry it around your body, is all true, but that's really more about how you get oxygen to your cells, not why your cells need it. The why is all about electron transport chains. Really. And if you're denied oxygen for some reason, you die because no oxygen = no final electron acceptor = no ATP = no cellular work = cells cease to function = death." - René Fester Kratz
Okay, you took in air and the oxygen in it was absorbed by your lungs and travelled through your bloodstream to your cells. Now what? What do your cells want oxygen for?
Cells (as I put in my last post) are complex organisms, always in motion, always working. That work is powered by the mitochondia (also called 'the powerhouses of the cell'). The process of energy production that they do is called cellular respiration.
Cellular respiration is a process that converts a molecule of sugar (glucose)--or some other energy source: carbohydrate, protein, or fat--and six molecules of oxygen into six molecules of carbon dioxide and six molecules of water. (The chemical formula is C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O.) It actually consists of three processes: glycolysis, the citric acid cycle (aka the Krebs cycle), and something called oxidative phosphorylation (aka the electron transport chain).
Glycolysis is the process where glucose (or some other carbohydrate/protein/fat) is broken down into the chemical pyruvate. It takes place in the fluid of the cell (which is called the cytosol). This is done as a first step and is in itself a complex process that creates a small amount of energy in the form of molecules of ATP and NADH. Basically the cell uses these molecules as ways to store energy, sort of like little batteries that can be plugged in and used when energy is needed. Once glycolysis is complete a couple of things can happen.
The most likely (in our bodies, anyway) thing to happen next is that the pyruvate enters the citric acid cycle. This is a really complex circle of reactions that take the pyruvate and break it down into carbon dioxide and water. It takes place in the mitochondria in our cells and whether it happens or not is decided by whether there is oxygen available or not.
If there isn't oxygen available (either because this is happening in a muscle that can't get oxygen quickly enough or because we're talking about yeast or bacteria), alternatively cells can use fermentation, which creates a lot of waste products--lactic acid in the case of your muscles, and which is why they become sore after hard work, as well as what happens from the bacteria in yogurt, and alcohol in the case of yeast, and people drink the waste products.
Assuming that the citric acid cycle happens, a few more energy molecules (ATP, NADH, and FADH2) are created. But the real energy pay-off is from the third part of the respiration process. This is called oxidative phosphorylation which breaks down the hydrogen from the glucose (or whatever) into electrons and protons (which is all hydrogen is, an electron and a proton) and sends the electrons along an electron transport chain in the membrane of the mitochondrion (the singular of mitochonria) and pumps the protons back and forth through the membrane. The whole process of the electrons travelling along the transport system reminds me of electricity (ie, electrons flowing through a wire). And the process creates a whole lot of ATP, which is what powers all the work your cells do.
Now here's what keeps it going. At the end of that transport chain is a molecule of oxygen. Oxygen is, in this case, the electron acceptor--it's what attracts the electrons and keeps them flowing through the transport chain. I think of it almost like a magnet--it strongly attracts the electrons and keeps the whole thing running. When the electrons and protons arrive, they combine back to hydrogen and then combine with the oxygen to form water (H2O). Then you pee out the extra water (and breathe out the carbon dioxide created in the citric acid cycle).
I've quoted a couple of times the line that "you can only live 3 minutes without air, you can live 3 days without water, and you can live 3 weeks without food." (See Air, 5/7/09, and Water, 5/10/09.) We need water to keep everything fluid in our bodies. Here is why we need food and air. We need food for those molecules of glucose (etc) to start the process of cellular respiration. And we need air to supply the oxygen to finish the process of cellular respiration. And, as you can tell by the fact that we can make it three weeks without food, but only three minutes without air, we really need that oxygen.
So, now that you know why we need oxygen, another question is, where does the oxygen come from? That's the topic of my next post.
Quote of the Day: "...When your muscles are doing lots of work, they need lots of ATP. Your cells make ATP by doing cellular respiration. In order to make ATP, you need oxygen to accept electrons at your electron transport chain. So, as you use up your ATP in your muscles, you breathe faster to bring in more oxygen, so you can have more oxygen in you mitochondia to accept more electrons, to make more ATP. This is why you breathe.
"Everything you already knew about breathing, such as bringing oxygen to your lungs and having your red blood cells carry it around your body, is all true, but that's really more about how you get oxygen to your cells, not why your cells need it. The why is all about electron transport chains. Really. And if you're denied oxygen for some reason, you die because no oxygen = no final electron acceptor = no ATP = no cellular work = cells cease to function = death." - René Fester Kratz
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Biology 101: Cells
Cells are the basic unit of biology. All living things (except viruses, and it's debatable whether they're alive) are made of cells--or are cells themselves. Some creatures are unicellular (consisting of one cell--examples are bacteria, amoebas, and diatoms) and others are multicellular (such as plant and animals).
While the cell structure of some unicellular beings (such as bacteria) is fairly simple, the structure of the cells of protozoa, fungi, plants, and animals are very similar and very complex. When I first started learning about cell structure, I had trouble believing all those little things (called organelles) really existed.
The cell is basically a huge chemical factory, constantly busy, constantly in motion. It's filled with these organelles, such as the nucleus, the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, and, in plants, chloroplasts.
One of the interesting things about these organelles, is where they came from; how did cells become so complex? One theory about some of the organelles--in particular, the mitochondria (the energy source for the cells) and chloroplasts (which contain the chlorophyll in plants)--is that they were originally bacteria that were taken in by cells. The mitochondria and chloroplasts even have their own separate DNA.
Besides organelles, cell have membranes that surround the cell and many of the organelles and, suprisingly (at least to me), they have their own skeleton. The membrane is particularly intriguing since it not only protects the cells (or organelles) but is also very involved in biochemical processes as well as regulating transport of materials across its boundary.
The mitochondria (and particularly the membrane of the mitochondria) and the chloroplasts are involved in two of the most important processes for all life on earth: cellular respiration and photosynthesis. I will talk about these in my next two posts.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this. Each of us is a walking conglomerate of millions of these cells. At this minute, they are all in action in your body. Think of it. Who you are is the sum of all these cells--the cells make up your organs and your organs make up the body you call you. All our thoughts are electrical impulses traveling through these cells. It makes me appreciate the Buddhist ideas of 'dependent origination' and having no separate, permanent self.
Quote of the Day: "Cells are the smallest living things and they have all the properties of life, including reproduction, response to environmental signals, a need for energy, and the release of waste products. ...
"All living things are made of cells. All cells are built out of the same materials and function in similar ways, showing the relationship of all life on Earth." - René Fester Kratz
While the cell structure of some unicellular beings (such as bacteria) is fairly simple, the structure of the cells of protozoa, fungi, plants, and animals are very similar and very complex. When I first started learning about cell structure, I had trouble believing all those little things (called organelles) really existed.
The cell is basically a huge chemical factory, constantly busy, constantly in motion. It's filled with these organelles, such as the nucleus, the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, and, in plants, chloroplasts.
One of the interesting things about these organelles, is where they came from; how did cells become so complex? One theory about some of the organelles--in particular, the mitochondria (the energy source for the cells) and chloroplasts (which contain the chlorophyll in plants)--is that they were originally bacteria that were taken in by cells. The mitochondria and chloroplasts even have their own separate DNA.
Besides organelles, cell have membranes that surround the cell and many of the organelles and, suprisingly (at least to me), they have their own skeleton. The membrane is particularly intriguing since it not only protects the cells (or organelles) but is also very involved in biochemical processes as well as regulating transport of materials across its boundary.
The mitochondria (and particularly the membrane of the mitochondria) and the chloroplasts are involved in two of the most important processes for all life on earth: cellular respiration and photosynthesis. I will talk about these in my next two posts.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this. Each of us is a walking conglomerate of millions of these cells. At this minute, they are all in action in your body. Think of it. Who you are is the sum of all these cells--the cells make up your organs and your organs make up the body you call you. All our thoughts are electrical impulses traveling through these cells. It makes me appreciate the Buddhist ideas of 'dependent origination' and having no separate, permanent self.
Quote of the Day: "Cells are the smallest living things and they have all the properties of life, including reproduction, response to environmental signals, a need for energy, and the release of waste products. ...
"All living things are made of cells. All cells are built out of the same materials and function in similar ways, showing the relationship of all life on Earth." - René Fester Kratz
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Biology 101: An Introduction
This has been a rough year for me. (More on this much later.) While trying to put together a community of sorts, I've been spending my spare time (what else?) reading.
Reading about community? Consensus decision making? Social change? Spiritual paths?
Well, yes, but mostly I've been reading about biology.
It started with me finding a recent, detailed college biology textbook in with the free books at my very local recycling center. I realized that if I was interested in taking care of people, health stuff, nutrition, growing food, plants, and ecosystems, these all had to do with life, and therefore, biology.
At my house, you can often find me at one kitchen table or another, reading a biology book (or several)--slowly poking my way through the big textbook as I eat lunch or dinner (always stopping if there's a housemate to talk with), really trying to learn this stuff. I have been supplementing the textbook with all sorts of other books on the various aspects of what I'm studying at the particular moment. I'm making my way systematically through the book. I've gone through biochemistry, cell structure, metabolism, cell communication, cell respiration, and photosynthesis. I'm now working my way through genetics.
I think that some of what I've been learning is important enough to put in this blog. Since one of the things I think is most important in social change is taking care of people and meeting their needs, I think that having some knowledge of how people work and the natural world works, can be useful in this.
Feel free to skip the next bunch of posts if most of this doesn't interest you (hopefully you skip things that don't interest you here anyway) but my hope is that social change activists and other people concerned about people might want to learn a little of what we're made of and what keeps us alive.
Quote of the Day: "Life can be explained by its underlying chemistry, just as chemistry can be explained by its underlying physics. But the life that emerges from the underlying chemistry of biomolecules is something more than the collection of molecules. ... once these molecules came to reside in cells, they began to interact with one another to generate new processes, like motility and metabolism and perception, processes that are unique to living creatures, processes that have no counterpart at simpler levels. These new, life-specific functions are referred to as emergent functions.
"...I once again revert to my covenant with Mystery, and respond to the emergence of Life not with a search for its Design or Purpose but instead with outrageous celebration that it occurred at all. I take the concept of miracle and use it not as a manifestation of divine intervention but as the astonishing property of emergence. Life does generate something-more-from-nothing-but, over and over again, and each emergence, even though fully explainable by chemistry, is nonetheless miraculous." - Ursula Goodenough
Reading about community? Consensus decision making? Social change? Spiritual paths?
Well, yes, but mostly I've been reading about biology.
It started with me finding a recent, detailed college biology textbook in with the free books at my very local recycling center. I realized that if I was interested in taking care of people, health stuff, nutrition, growing food, plants, and ecosystems, these all had to do with life, and therefore, biology.
At my house, you can often find me at one kitchen table or another, reading a biology book (or several)--slowly poking my way through the big textbook as I eat lunch or dinner (always stopping if there's a housemate to talk with), really trying to learn this stuff. I have been supplementing the textbook with all sorts of other books on the various aspects of what I'm studying at the particular moment. I'm making my way systematically through the book. I've gone through biochemistry, cell structure, metabolism, cell communication, cell respiration, and photosynthesis. I'm now working my way through genetics.
I think that some of what I've been learning is important enough to put in this blog. Since one of the things I think is most important in social change is taking care of people and meeting their needs, I think that having some knowledge of how people work and the natural world works, can be useful in this.
Feel free to skip the next bunch of posts if most of this doesn't interest you (hopefully you skip things that don't interest you here anyway) but my hope is that social change activists and other people concerned about people might want to learn a little of what we're made of and what keeps us alive.
Quote of the Day: "Life can be explained by its underlying chemistry, just as chemistry can be explained by its underlying physics. But the life that emerges from the underlying chemistry of biomolecules is something more than the collection of molecules. ... once these molecules came to reside in cells, they began to interact with one another to generate new processes, like motility and metabolism and perception, processes that are unique to living creatures, processes that have no counterpart at simpler levels. These new, life-specific functions are referred to as emergent functions.
"...I once again revert to my covenant with Mystery, and respond to the emergence of Life not with a search for its Design or Purpose but instead with outrageous celebration that it occurred at all. I take the concept of miracle and use it not as a manifestation of divine intervention but as the astonishing property of emergence. Life does generate something-more-from-nothing-but, over and over again, and each emergence, even though fully explainable by chemistry, is nonetheless miraculous." - Ursula Goodenough
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