The unique properties of iron and copper facilitate electron transport chains required for respiration and other crucial cellular functions. Also, the properties of iron in hemoglobin are just right for the transport of oxygen. The properties of iron and copper make the reduction of oxygen to water by cytochrome c oxidase possible. Zinc is critical to the transport of carbon dioxide in the cell.

A Reading from Michael Denton’s New Book, The Miracle of the Cell A Reading from Michael Denton’s New Book, The Miracle of the Cell

Distributed and produced by Viva Films, [5] the film premiered on December 25, 2019, as one of the eight official entries to the 2019 Metro Manila Film Festival. a b Dizon, David (December 27, 2019). "MMFF review: 'Miracle in Cell No. 7' is a tear-jerking tsunami of a movie". ABS-CBN News . Retrieved January 1, 2020. The sodium and potassium cations are uniquely suited for rapid transport across cell membranes to establish electrical potentials. The unique properties of the carbon atom make life possible. Carbon can form large stable molecules capable of carrying the information for building and maintaining organisms. Carbon can form stable bonds with many other elements resulting in a great variety of organic compounds.

The unique properties of water facilitate biochemistry. These properties include its polarity and viscosity. These properties make water an ideal solvent, generate the “hydrophobic force,” facilitate the formation of “proton wires,” result in the temperature range for liquid water, allow the rapid diffusion of gases and nutrients, allow for rapid circulation of blood cells through capillaries while maintaining cell membrane stability, etc. The temperature range of liquid water is the same as the temperature range required for biochemistry. The elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur—the key atoms for biochemistry—make covalent compounds with carbon that have defined 3D structures. These same elements facilitate the formation of the weak noncovalent bonding interactions critical to the DNA helix and enzyme function. Transition metals (for example: iron, copper) can form covalent bonds with many of the same atoms. Transition elements, often associated with proteins, confer special activities to these proteins. Weak noncovalent bonds can form reversibly. For example, pulling DNA strands apart for transcription or replication mainly involves the breaking of many weak hydrogen bonds. The specificity and catalytic power of protein enzymes are largely determined by the weak bonds formed within the protein. Denton says, The unique fitness of the cell to serve as the fundamental unit of life is also manifest in its amazing abilities and the diversity of functions it performs. Even the tiny E. coli, a cylinder-shaped bacterium in the human gut, has spectacular capabilities. Howard Berg has marveled at the versatility and capacities of this minuscule organism, calling its talents “legion.” He notes that this tiny organism, less than one-millionth of a meter in diameter and two-millionths of a meter long, so small that “20 would fit end-to-end in a single rod cell of the human retina,” is nevertheless “adept at counting molecules of specific sugars, amino acids, or dipeptides; at integration of similar or dissimilar sensory inputs over space and time; at comparing counts taken over the recent and not so recent past; at triggering an all-or-nothing response; at swimming in a viscous medium… even pattern formation.” Soon many compounds found in living things were made synthetically. Most of the compounds contained carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Soon the chemicals of life were seen as special because of the unique properties conferred upon them by their elemental makeup, especially carbon, and not because they were the product of a vital life force. The atoms that make up biochemicals are specifically suited to form compounds that make life possible. Once the uniqueness of carbon was recognized, the field of organic chemistry (the study of the compounds of carbon) was born. Denton remarks:

MIRACLE OF THE CELLS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE MIRACLE OF THE CELLS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF

Denton explains how people once believed in a mysterious vitalist force that was uniquely capable of generating the molecules of life. Denton observes: In the embryo it is not just one cell moving towards a specific target but millions of cells, each moving towards specific targets in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of different embryonic cells and chemical signals, with each cell obeying a strictly choreographed program, a program directing the timing of gene expression and a unique succession of changes in cell shape and cell surface proteins and adhesive properties in different cells in different regions of the embryo.

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Ji, Yong-jin (19 March 2013). "MIRACLE IN CELL NO. 7 Passes MASQUERADE to Become 3rd Most Successful Korean Film". Korean Film Council . Retrieved 2013-03-20.

Official Launch of The Miracle of the Cell by Michael Denton

Here, Denton discusses his new book “The Miracle of the Cell” with Eric Anderson in this Zoom event from Discovery Institute in which people from around the world submitted questions to Dr. Denton. Lastly, I hope the reader will view the video showing a white blood cell chasing bacteria across a coverslip cited in Chapter 1. Watching it conveys something of the amazing nature of these extraordinary, tiny entities, the basic units of all life on Earth. 1. THE AMAZING CELL All cells need energy. They need energy to carry out their varied functional repertoire, including many different enzymatic actions, synthesizing their complement of proteins, lipids and DNA, and pumping ions across the cell membrane. They need energy to move, crawl over the substratum, and transport materials inside the cell, with molecular motors carrying cargoes along microtubules or actin filaments. Most of these activities—from crawling to synthesizing proteins and other polymers such as DNA—can only proceed if chemical energy is put into the system. Generating and using energy is thus basic to all of cell biology. Ova tells Memo and his cellmates that she found a deserter who witnessed Memo's alleged crime, who confirms that it was an accident and that Memo was innocent. Upon hearing this, the inmates then ask the Chief Warden, Nail, and his aide, Faruk, to investigate. They find the deserter, only for him to be killed by the dead girl's father to ensure Memo is executed. The last transition metal Denton discusses in this chapter is molybdenum. Molybdenum occurs in four important enzymes. Molybdenum is found in the enzyme nitrogenase, which is responsible for nitrogen fixation (reduction of N 2 to ammonia). Nitrogenases containing vanadium and iron are known.Cell membranes can have an electrical potential across them caused by the difference in ion concentrations on either side of the membrane. The membrane potential is used to power rapid transport of molecules across the membrane. Sugars and amino acids are transported into a cell by using a sodium cation gradient. Ion gradients facilitate nerve impulses. Ion transport across membranes can be as rapid as 1 million ions per second! Only sodium and potassium cations can function in this crucial role. Chapter 5: Energy for Cells In the early modern period right up to the first decades of the nineteenth century, many biologists were vitalists, believing that the unique behavior, characteristics, and abilities of living things that were not shared by non-living things—including sentience, agency, and the capacity for self-replication—were the result of a nonmaterial, indwelling vital spirit. The length of fatty acid chains, the nonpolar hydrocarbon portion of phospholipids, is critical to the required properties of cell membranes. The hydrocarbon fatty acid chains usually consist of 16 or 18 carbon atoms (C16, C18) covalently bound in a linear chain. If the hydrocarbon chains were much longer, they would become wax-like and less flexible. Shorter chains are too mobile and would make the membrane less stable. And the C16 and C18 chains provide a membrane with the same width as folded proteins, another remarkable coincidence that suggests foresight and design. Miracle in Cell No. 7 is a 2019 Filipino drama film directed by Nuel Crisostomo Naval and starring Aga Muhlach Xia Vigor and Bela Padilla. The film is based on the 2013 South Korean film of the same name directed by Lee Hwan-kyung. [2]