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    Default If you stop a cell

    by denying it the necessary ingredients for the production of ATP, can it be restarted?

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    Depends on how you do it I think?

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    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg View Post
    by denying it the necessary ingredients for the production of ATP, can it be restarted?
    Technically yes. As a worst-case scenario, you could boil it down and make a new, functioning cell out of those pieces (plu the ingredients that were lacking).

    Actually, Subterranean's answer was probably better.



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    Hmmm I'm not a pro on cells, but if I were investigating this question

    I would first look at the conditions for cell life and death, as well as a clear understanding of the ATP cycle, and first see if any interruption in the ATP cycle will lead to a condition for cell death being satisfied, and secondarily if so (cell death occurs), if there are any variables that can be modified to reinstate the necessarily conditions for cell life.

    My intuitive guess is that the cell probably has a certain amount of backup resources it can depend on if a problem occurs in its ATP cycle, but the cell will run less efficiently and eventually die if it doesn't return back to normal functionality. I'm also guessing that a cell once dead can't be restarted, as their would be little sense in cells reproducing and multiplying.

    Also I tend to think there is probably a method to create cells in a laboratory or to re-vitalize them, but these methods are likely crude, and will always require a greater investment in energy than if the cell had not died. My guess for this is the 2nd law of thermodynamics, building a precise chemical structure of components would be at a lower entropy than a random soup of disoriented molecules. Since entropy must always increase by the currently observed laws of physics, even the most efficient process of constructing a cell would require at least the difference in entropy between a dead and alive cell.

    This is just purely intuitive, I'm sure there are some work-arounds, and I'm fascinated to see what the new forefront of medical technology will be. In fact the creation of life and the 2nd law of thermodynamics always seemed to contradict itself.... how does a highly ordered and structured organism spontaneous appear when it would seem to be at a higher entropy than a mere soup of organic molecules...... is it only possible because our highly ordered existence depends on creating more chaos and entropy in the universe until life is completely non-existant? Apparently so, unless an exception to the laws of thermodynamics exists, which I'm kind of hoping it does.... thermodynamics and entropy is so depressing compared to something like astronomy were you talk about the creation of worlds and distant universes, thermodynamics talks about everything falling apart eventually into absolute cold and darkness.

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    All the 2nd law of thermodynamics says is that given enough time any organized system will break down. It doesn't say how much time, only that it will eventually happen. It does not forbid that a disordered system be reordered.

    That I understand, when ATP stops, the motion of the cell stops as well. Assuming no bacteria or pathogens, the cell will remain inert. The cell does not really use ATP as an energy source... rather, it is the process of creating ATP which keeps the cell's parts in motion, therefore making the whole "alive".

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    I don't know why people have to overthink this. It is a very everyday occurrence that cells can be deactivated by supercooling, and then later be reactivated, for example.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Subterranean View Post
    I don't know why people have to overthink this. It is a very everyday occurrence that cells can be deactivated by supercooling, and then later be reactivated, for example.
    link?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Subterranean View Post
    I don't know why people have to overthink this. It is a very everyday occurrence that cells can be deactivated by supercooling, and then later be reactivated, for example.
    lol that isn't cell death though.... freezing just slows the chemical reactions and metabolism. The cell is still functioning, just at negligibly slow rates and is therefore effectively "shut down". And freezing a cell requires a power source to power a refridgerator, which creates entropy =p.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg View Post
    All the 2nd law of thermodynamics says is that given enough time any organized system will break down. It doesn't say how much time, only that it will eventually happen. It does not forbid that a disordered system be reordered.
    Actually you probably don't understand it as well as you think you do, I don't understand it as well as I could, and I've spent a considerable amount of effort towards understanding it.

    The statement it does not forbid a disordered system be reordered.... yes it does, the law says "entropy must always increase".... reversible processes have 0 change in entropy. There is no such thing as negative change in entropy as a system moves forward, unless it draws its energy from a reserve which increases in entropy by at least the same amount. Generally what is intuitively referred to as order is rigorously defined as entropy which has a statistical definition and a thermodynamics definition using mathematics.

    What I was taking about was this.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe as applied to biological systems.
    Last edited by male; 12-21-2010 at 01:48 AM.

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