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Photosynthetic oxygen evolution is the fundamental process by which oxygen is generated in the earth's biosphere. The reaction is part of the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of green algae and plants. It utilizes the energy of light to split a water molecule into its protons and electrons for ...
To use this stored chemical energy, an organism's cells metabolize the organic compounds through cellular respiration. Photosynthesis plays a critical role in producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere, and it supplies most of the biological energy necessary for complex life on Earth. [2]
Nutrients that are commonly used by animal and plant cells in respiration include sugar, amino acids and fatty acids, and the most common oxidizing agent is molecular oxygen (O 2). The chemical energy stored in ATP (the bond of its third phosphate group to the rest of the molecule can be broken allowing more stable products to form, thereby ...
Cyanobacteria become the first oxygen producers 2.4 – 2.3 billion years ago Earliest evidence (from rocks) that oxygen was in the atmosphere 1.2 billion years ago Red and brown algae become structurally more complex than bacteria 0.75 billion years ago Green algae outperform red and brown algae in the strong light of shallow water
Oxygen is the most abundant chemical element by mass in the Earth's biosphere, air, sea and land. Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium. [ 68 ] About 0.9% of the Sun 's mass is oxygen. [ 19 ]
The process of breathing does not fill the alveoli with atmospheric air during each inhalation (about 350 ml per breath), but the inhaled air is carefully diluted and thoroughly mixed with a large volume of gas (about 2.5 liters in adult humans) known as the functional residual capacity which remains in the lungs after each exhalation, and ...
When humans and other lifeforms get stressed out, the balance of oxygen in our cells gets disrupted. In response, the mitochondria—bean-shaped structures that supply cells with energy—ramp up ...
However, absorption of light of the right photon energy can lift them to a higher energy level. Any light that has too little or too much energy cannot be absorbed and is reflected. The electron in the higher energy level is unstable and will quickly return to its normal lower energy level. To do this, it must release the absorbed energy.