Question

State 4 importance of diffusion in nature

Answer 1

Answer:

Diffusion is an instance in Biology of creatively obeying the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Under that law the disorder of a system will tend to increase and thus substances that are concentrated in one location will disperse. Life in general is a contradiction to the 2nd Law. Living organisms conspicuously concentrate things against concentration gradients. They hold these concentrations of things inside their cell membranes. Others have given examples of the dispersal phenomenon which illustrates that the 2nd Law is in operation. However living organisms have actually taken advantage of the 2nd Law to actually win the war of Life by allowing it to go against the laws of diffusion (dissorder). One of the prime examples of that is the focus of bacteria on using its energy from respiration or anaerobic glycolysis to pump protons out of their cell creating a high proton concentration (low pH) outside their cells. They then use this concentration difference to do work. The created proton gradient through its diffusion pressure runs the turbine engine of their bacterial flagellum to rotate the flagellum and allow the bacterium to move toward sources of nutrients. The force of proton diffusion they have created also allows the bacteria to use co-transport pumps in their cell membranes to co-transport nutrients from a low concentration outside to a higher concentration inside the cell. In this case diffusion is not the passive obedience to the 2nd Law but rather the bacterium creates an increased high-proton-concentration outside to do work to benefit their low-proton-concentration insides. While the 2nd Law (increased disorder) is obeyed in the universe in general, living organisms create order (proton concentration differences) that they then use (through diffusion) to do the work needed to stay alive.