Related papers: Energy from food
Cells generally convert nutrient resources to useful products via energy transduction. Accordingly, the thermodynamic efficiency of this conversion process is one of the most essential characteristics of living organisms. However, although…
A complete mathematical theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics of stochastic systems in terms of master equations is presented. As generalizations of isothermal entropy and free energy, two functions of states play central roles: the Gibbs…
Routinely navigating through an ever-changing and unsteady environment, and utilizing chemical energy, molecular motors transport the cell's crucial components, such as neurotransmitters and organelles. They generate force and pull cargo,…
The dynamics of folding of proteins is studied by means of a phenomenological master equation. The energy distribution is taken as a truncated exponential for the misfolded states plus a native state sitting below the continuum. The…
We devise automated workflows for the calculation of Helmholtz and Gibbs free energies and their temperature and pressure dependence and provide the corresponding computational tools. We employ non-equilibrium thermodynamics for evaluating…
In this study we reproduced this compression-induced reduction in muscle force through the use of a three-dimensional finite element model of contracting muscle. The model used the principle of minimum total energy and allowed for the…
Protein machines often exhibit long range interplay between different sites in order to achieve their biological tasks. We investigate and characterize the non--linear energy localization and the basic mechanisms of energy transfer in…
The neuron consumes energy from ATP hydrolysis to maintain a far-from-equilibrium steady state inside the cell, thus all physiological functions inside the cell are modulated by thermodynamics. The neurons that manage information encoding,…
We propose a concept of autonomous energy transducer at a molecular scale, where output is produced with small input energy, of the same order of the thermal energy, without restriction of magnitude or timing of input, and without any…
Protein conformational changes are activated processes essential for protein functions. Activation in a protein differs from activation in a small molecule in that it involves directed and systematic energy flows through preferred channels…
Water plays a fundamental role in protein stability. However, the effect of the properties of water on the behaviour of proteins is only partially understood. Several theories have been proposed to give insight into the mechanisms of cold…
Living organisms continuously harness energy to perform complex functions for their adaptation and survival while part of that energy is dissipated in the form of heat or chemical waste. Determining the energetic cost and the efficiency of…
Dietary assessment is essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Automatic image-based dietary assessment is a growing field of research due to the increasing prevalence of image capturing devices (e.g. mobile phones). In this work, we…
Conversion of corn to ethanol in the US since 2005 has been a major cause of global food price increases during that time and has been shown to be ineffective in achieving US energy independence and reducing environmental impact. We make…
Molecular motors transduce chemical energy obtained from hydrolizing ATP into mechanical work exerted against an external force. We calculate their efficiency at maximum power output for two simple generic models and show that the…
The enzyme FoF1-ATP synthase provides the 'chemical energy currency' adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for living cells. Catalysis is driven by mechanochemical coupling of subunit rotation within the enzyme with conformational changes in the…
The process of evolution by natural selection leads to phenotypes of increasing fitness. For cellular chemical reaction networks, this means optimising a variety of fitness functions such as robustness, precision, or sensitivity to external…
ATPases cyclically convert chemical energy in the form of ATP gradients into directed motion inside cells. To function, ATPases rely on allosteric communication between at least two binding sites, an internal signaling mechanism that is not…
A quantum theory on conformation-electron system is presented. Protein folding is regarded as the quantum transition between torsion states on polypeptide chain, and the folding rate is calculated by nonadiabatic operator method. The theory…
Motor enzymes catalyze chemical reactions, like the hydrolysis of ATP, and in the process they also perform work. Recent studies indicate that motor enzymes perform work with specific intermediate steps in their catalyzed reactions,…