Hello welcome to chat science, I am Hayley Loren and today we are chatting about one
of nature’s most important reactions, respiration.
Everything that we do requires energy, like moving around, keeping warm and even going
shopping.
So the question is how do we get that energy?
Now the first thing you probably think of is food.
And yes that is where it all starts.
But once we’ve actually eaten something how does our body get the energy from the
food?
This is where respiration comes in.
Now day to day if you use the word respiration you might think of breathing.
But in biological terms, just to make things really simple, respiration is not breathing
– whaaaat?
As you breathe in and out, that is a physical process of bringing air into your lungs to
get oxygen and swapping it with carbon dioxide.
Respiration is a chemical reaction which turns glucose into energy.
The energy that’s produced from respiration is called ATP and this is basically like a
currency that the body can use to trade for different things, like keeping warm and making
proteins.
The really fascinating thing is that this chemical reaction is happening inside all
living cells continuously.
So in every cell that we’re made up of, energy is being pumped out so that we can
do incredible things.
And respiration is happening in all living organisms, so that’s inside your cells,
inside my cells, inside a snails cells.
What’s also cool is that there are 2 main types of respiration.
The first one is aerobic respiration and this is where the chemical reaction happens in
the precense of oxygen.
So as you’re sitting there now, you’re breathing, and getting a lot of oxygen into
your lungs.
So your cells are very happily taking glucose and turning it into energy in the presence
of oxygen. , and through this reaction carbon dioxide and water are also produced.
The second one is anaerobic respiration and this is where the reaction happens without
oxygen.
You know that moment when you are running for the bus and you are really going for it,
and for most people in this situation you can’t breathe fast enough to get enough
oxygen into your lungs but instead of our body just literally giving up, we have an
emergency back up system.
Which is anaerobic respiration.
What this means is that glucose can still be converted into energy without the presence
of oxygen.
but what happens is that lactic acid is produced instead of carbon dioxide and water.
Now I’m pretty sure we have all experienced that moment during sport and exercise when
our muscles start to burn and they start to hurt a bit that is the build up of lactic
acid.
So I think we should take a moment here to really appreciate our bodies because this
whole process is amazing.
I mean we eat food and then that’s digested in our stomachs and we get glucose and then
that glucose is used to produce energy through respiration and then that can happen in the
presence of oxygen or not in the presence of oxygen.
I mean how amazing is that?
Thank you so much for watching I hope that you enjoyed it and you found it very very
useful.
If you did like it please do subscribe.
Subscribe!
Have a wonderful rest of your morning, day, evening, whatever time it is that you happen
to be watching this.
I hope you have a wonderful week and I will see you very soon.