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Yeah, from Wikipedia: > An essential nutrient is a nutrient required for normal physiological function that cannot be synthesized in the body (...) The nutrien
by cubefox 2y ago
Yeah, from Wikipedia:
> An essential nutrient is a nutrient required for normal physiological function that cannot be synthesized in the body (...) The nutrients considered essential for humans comprise nine amino acids, two fatty acids, thirteen vitamins, fifteen minerals and choline.
While some of these can be synthesized by other animals, this is not the case of minerals like iodine. I believe only organic compounds can be synthesized by animals.
- SAI_Peregrinus 2y agoOur bodies can synthesize several inorganic compounds, and other organisms can synthesize even more. There are biological sources of $H_{2}O$, $NH_{4}^{+}$, $NO$, $HCO_{3}^{−}$, $HPO_{4}^{2−}$, and (traditionally considered inorganic despite having carbon) $CO_{2}$. Iodine is an element, not a compound, and can only be synthesized through nuclear processes, not chemical ones.
- morjom 2y agoWhat is this kind of notation from/based on? e.g $H_{2}O$
- varenc 2y agoLooks like LaTeX syntax.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoLaTeX would be \(H_{2}O\) – or, more likely, \ce{H2O} or \ch{H2O}.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoThat's TeX. Every time Donald Knuth gets distracted from writing The Art of Computer Programming, he makes another piece of load-bearing infrastructure. (TeX came about because the second edition of Volume 1 didn't look as nice as the first edition.)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lgeorget 2y agoThe definition I remember from my chemistry class is that organic compounds are those having at least one C-H bond.
- gilleain 2y agoIt's a reasonable definition, especially when classifying biochemicals, but there are always edge cases. For example : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carborane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carborane that definitely do have C-H bonds but are mostly B-B, B-C, B-H.
- gilleain 2y agoI feel your use of TeX (or whatever that notation is precisely ...) is far too clear. Possibly use InChI instead, so instead of "$HPO_{4}^{2−}$", use "InChI=1S/H3O4P/c1-5(2,3)4/h(H3,1,2,3,4)/p-2". Or, more concisely, just use the key, which is "NBIIXXVUZAFLBC-UHFFFAOYSA-L". :) (from : https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chebi/searchId.do?chebiId=43474 https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chebi/searchId.do?chebiId=43474)
- capitainenemo 2y agoOr just unicode. Standard digraphs ftw (xcompose, wincompose...). It's even typed in the same way (_4 ^+ etc) - and maybe there's tex tools that output unicode these days where possible? H₂O, NH₄⁺, NO, HCO₃⁻, HPO₄²⁻
- gilleain 2y agoYes, that's pretty good ... but - the charges on [NH4]+, [HCO3]-, and [HPO4]2- should be above the subscripts on their last atoms. Minor point really.
- capitainenemo 2y agotrue, true... I wonder if that's even possible to do in unicode. maybe some combining char thing. I certainly wouldn't be able to type a digraph of it from memory if it is. But, I feel it's still more readable this way
- cubefox 2y agoOr Hacker News could finally add support for LaTeX and markdown...
- mr_toad 2y agoDoes respiration count as synthesis?
- freehorse 2y agoMinerals (as the term is used in nutrition, not in mining) are chemical elements, not "compounds". They are part of the constituents that can be synthesised into compounds. Usually our bodies obtain them in some form of organic or inorganic salts, which are compounds, so we obtain them as parts of compounds. To synthesise compounds that contain iodine, you need iodine in some form. As we are not talking about nuclear reactions through which elements are synthesised through other elements, there is no way humans, animals or plants synthesise any minerals like iodine, we all obtain them from some source. The original sentence is weird, because it talks as if iodine can be synthesised somehow chemically but just our bodies are unable to.