Concept 3.2 Four Emergent Properties of Water Contribute to Earth’s Suitability for Life

Concept 3.2 Four emergent properties of water contribute to Earth’s suitability for life Organisms depend on the cohesion of water molecules. ● Collectively, hydrogen bonds hold water together, a phenomenon called cohesion. ● Cohesion among water molecules plays a key role in transporting water and dissolved nutrients against gravity in plants. ○ Water molecules move up from the roots to the leaves of a plant through ○ As water molecules evaporate from a leaf, other water molecules from vessels in ○ Hydrogen bonds cause water molecules leaving the vessels to tug on molecules ○ This upward pull is transmitted down to the roots. ○ Adhesion, the clinging of one substance to another, also contributes, as water water-conducting vessels. the leaf replace them. farther down. adheres to the walls of the vessels. ● Surface tension, a measure of the force necessary to stretch or break the surface of a liquid, is related to cohesion. ○ Water has a greater surface tension than most other liquids because hydrogen ○ Water behaves as if covered by an invisible film. ○ Some animals can stand, walk, or run on water without breaking the surface. bonds among surface water molecules resist stretching or breaking the surface. Water moderates temperatures on Earth. ● Water moderates air temperatures by absorbing heat from warmer air and releasing the ● Water can absorb or release relatively large amounts of heat with only a slight change in ● Atoms and molecules have kinetic energy, the energy of motion, because they are stored heat to cooler air. its own temperature. always moving. ○ The faster a molecule moves, the more kinetic energy it has. ● Heat is a measure of the total quantity of kinetic energy due to molecular motion in a ● Temperature measures the intensity of heat in a body of matter due to the average body of matter. kinetic energy of molecules. ○ As the average speed of molecules increases, a thermometer records an increase in temperature. ● Heat and temperature are related but not identical. ○ Heat depends in part on the matter’s volume, while temperature is the average kinetic energy of molecules, regardless of volume. ● When two objects of different temperatures come together, heat passes from the warmer object to the cooler object until the two are the same temperature. ○ Molecules in the cooler object speed up at the expense of the kinetic energy of ○ Ice cubes cool a glass of soda by absorbing heat from the soda as the ice melts. the warmer object. ● ● In most biological settings, temperature is measured on the Celsius scale (°C). ○ At sea level, water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C. ○ Human body temperature is typically 37°C. Although there are several ways to measure heat energy, one convenient unit is the calorie (cal). ○ One calorie is the amount of heat energy necessary to raise the temperature of 1 ○ A calorie is released when 1 g of water cools by 1°C. gram of water by 1°C. ● In many biological processes, the kilocalorie (kcal) is a more convenient unit. ○ One kilocalorie is the amount of heat energy necessary to raise the temperature of 1000 g (1 kg) of water by 1°C. ● Another common energy unit, the joule (J), is equivalent to 0.239 cal. Water has a high specific heat ● Water stabilizes temperature because it has a high specific heat. ● The specific heat of a substance is the amount of heat that must be absorbed or lost for 1 g of that substance to change its temperature by 1°C. ○ By definition, the specific heat of water is 1 cal per gram per degree Celsius, or 1 cal/g/°C. ● Water has an unusually high specific heat compared to other substances. o For example, ethyl alcohol has a specific heat of 0.6 cal/g/°C. ○ ● The specific heat of iron is one-tenth that of water. Water resists changes in temperature because of its high specific heat. ○ In other words, water absorbs or releases a relatively large quantity of heat for each degree of temperature change. ● Water’s high specific heat is due to hydrogen bonding. ○ Heat must be absorbed to break hydrogen bonds, and heat is released when ○ The investment of 1 calorie of heat causes relatively little change in the hydrogen bonds form. temperature of water because much of the energy is used to disrupt hydrogen bonds, not speed up the movement of water molecules. ● Water’s high specific heat affects Earth as a whole as well as individual organisms. ○ A large body of water can absorb a large amount of heat from the sun during the daytime in the summer and yet warm only a few degrees. ○ At night and during the winter, the warm water heats the cooler air. ○ Therefore, the oceans and coastal land areas have more stable temperatures ○ Living things are made of primarily water, so they resist changes in temperature than inland areas. better than they would if composed of a liquid with a lower specific heat. Water’s high heat of vaporization has many effects. ● The transformation of a molecule from a liquid to a gas is called vaporization, or evaporation. ○ Vaporization occurs when a molecule moves fast enough to overcome the ○ The speed of molecular movement varies; temperature is the average kinetic attraction of other molecules in the liquid. energy of molecules. ○ Even in a low-temperature liquid (with low average kinetic energy), some ○ Heating a liquid increases the average kinetic energy and increases the rate of molecules move fast enough to evaporate. evaporation. ● Heat of vaporization is the quantity of heat that a liquid must absorb for 1 g of it to be converted from liquid to gas. ○ Water has a relatively high heat of vaporization, with about 580 cal of heat required to evaporate 1 g of water at room temperature. ○ This is double the amount of heat required to vaporize the same quantity of ○ The heat of vaporization is high because hydrogen bonds must be broken before alcohol or ammonia. a water molecule can evaporate from the liquid. ● The large amount of energy required to vaporize water has a wide range of effects. ○ Water’s high heat of vaporization moderates climate. ○ Much of the sun’s heat absorbed by tropical oceans is used for the evaporation ○ As moist tropical air moves to the poles, water vapor condenses to form rain, of surface water. releasing heat. ● At the level of the organism, water’s high heat of vaporization accounts for the severity of steam burns. ○ Steam burns are caused by the heat energy released when steam condenses to liquid on the skin. ● As a liquid evaporates, the surface of the liquid that remains behind cools, a phenomenon called evaporative cooling. ○ The most energetic molecules are the most likely to evaporate, leaving the lower–kinetic energy molecules behind. ○ ● Evaporative cooling moderates temperature in lakes and ponds. Evaporation of sweat in mammals or evaporation of water from the leaves of plants removes excess heat and prevents terrestrial organisms from overheating. Oceans and lakes don’t freeze solid because ice floats on water. ● Water is unusual because it is less dense as a solid than as a cold liquid. ○ Most materials contract as they solidify, but water expands. ○ At temperatures higher than 4°C, water behaves like other liquids, expanding as it warms and contracting as it cools. ● Water begins to freeze when its molecules are no longer moving vigorously enough to ● When water reaches 0°C, it becomes locked into a crystalline lattice, with each water break their hydrogen bonds. molecule bonded to four partners. ● As ice starts to melt, some of the hydrogen bonds break, and water molecules can slip ● Ice is about 10% less dense than water at 4°C. Therefore, ice floats on the cool water closer together than they can while in the ice state. below. ● Ice floating on water has important consequences for life. ○ If ice sank, eventually all ponds, lakes, and even oceans would freeze solid. ○ During the summer, only the upper few centimeters of oceans would thaw. ○ Instead, the surface layer of ice insulates the liquid water below, preventing it ○ Ice also provides solid habitat for Arctic animals like polar bears and seals. from freezing and allowing life to exist under the frozen surface. ● Global warming is affecting icy environments around the globe. ○ In northern Alaska and Canada, the average air temperature has risen 1.40C ○ As a result, ice forms later, melts earlier, and covers a smaller area of the Arctic, since 1961. threatening animals that depend on ice for survival. Water is the solvent of life. ● A liquid that is a completely homogeneous mixture of two or more substances is called a solution. ○ A sugar cube in a glass of water eventually dissolves to form a uniform solution of sugar and water. ● The dissolving agent is the solvent, and the substance that is dissolved is the solute. ○ In our example, water is the solvent and sugar is the solute. ● In an aqueous solution, water is the solvent. ● Water is not a universal solvent, but it is very versatile because of the polarity of water molecules. ○ Water is an effective solvent because it readily forms hydrogen bonds with ○ For example, when a crystal of salt (NaCl) is placed in water, the Na+ cations charged and polar covalent molecules. interact with the partial negative charges of the oxygen regions of water molecules. ○ The Cl− anions interact with the partial positive charges of the hydrogen regions ○ Each dissolved ion is surrounded by a sphere of water molecules, a hydration of water molecules. shell. ○ Eventually, water dissolves all the ions, resulting in a solution with two solutes: sodium and chloride ions. ● Polar molecules are soluble in water because they form hydrogen bonds with water. ● Even large molecules, like proteins, can dissolve in water if they have ionic and polar ● A substance that has an affinity for water is hydrophilic (water-loving). ● Some hydrophilic substances do not dissolve because their molecules are too large. regions. ○ Hydrophilic substances are dominated by ionic or polar bonds. ○ For example, cotton is hydrophilic because cellulose, its major constituent, has numerous polar covalent bonds. However, its giant cellulose molecules are too large to dissolve in water. ○ Water molecules form hydrogen bonds with the cellulose fibers of cotton. When you dry yourself with a cotton towel, the water is pulled into the towel. ● Substances that have no affinity for water are hydrophobic (water-fearing). ○ Hydrophobic substances are nonionic and have nonpolar covalent bonds. ○ Because no regions consistently have partial or full charges, water molecules ○ Oils such as vegetable oil are hydrophobic because the dominant bonds, ○ Hydrophobic molecules are major ingredients of cell membranes. cannot form hydrogen bonds with hydrophobic molecules. carbon-carbon and carbon-hydrogen, share electrons equally. ● Biological chemistry is “wet” chemistry, with most reactions involving solutes dissolved in ● Chemical reactions depend on collisions of molecules and therefore on the water. concentrations of solutes in aqueous solution. ● When carrying out experiments, we use mass to calculate the number of molecules. ○ We know the mass of each atom in a given molecule, so we can calculate its ○ We measure the number of molecules in units called moles. molecular mass, which is the sum of the masses of all the atoms in a molecule. ● The actual number of molecules in a mole is called Avogadro’s number, 6.02 × 1023 . ○ A mole (mol) is equal to the molecular weight of a substance but scaled up from daltons to grams. ● To illustrate, how can we measure 1 mole of table sugar—sucrose (C12H22O11)? ○ A carbon atom weighs 12 daltons, hydrogen 1 dalton, and oxygen 16 daltons. ○ One molecule of sucrose weighs 342 daltons, the sum of the weights of all the ○ To get 1 mole of sucrose, we would weigh out 342 g. atoms in sucrose, or the molecular weight of sucrose. ● The advantage of using a mole as a unit of measure is that a mole of one substance has the same number of molecules as a mole of any other substance. ○ If substance A has a molecular weight of 10 daltons and substance B has a molecular weight of 100 daltons, then we know that 10 g of substance A has the same number of molecules as 100 g of substance B. ○ A mole of sucrose contains 6.02 × 1023 molecules and weighs 342 g, while a mole of ethyl alcohol (C2H6O) also contains 6.02 × 1023 molecules but weighs only 46 g because the molecules are smaller. ○ Measuring in moles allows scientists to combine substances in fixed ratios of molecules. ● In “wet” chemistry, we typically combine solutions or measure the quantities of materials in aqueous solutions. ○ The concentration of a material in solution is called its molarity. ○ A one-molar (1 M) solution has 1 mole of a substance dissolved in 1 liter of a ○ To make a 1 M solution of sucrose, we would slowly add water to 342 g of solvent, typically water. sucrose until the total volume was 1 liter and all the sugar was dissolved. ● Because water is essential to life on Earth, astrobiologists seeking extraterrestrial life have concentrated on planets that may have water. ○ Over 200 planets have been found outside our solar system, and there is evidence for the presence of water vapor on one or two of them. ○ Mars, like Earth, has an ice cap at both poles. In 2008, the robotic spacecraft Phoenix landed on Mars and found ice under the Martian surface and water vapor in the Martian atmosphere. ○ This exciting finding has reinvigorated the search for signs of past or present life on Mars and other planets