Ongoing discussion for students in Chemistry III

Please abide by the following when posting to this blog:
1) no profanity & no attacking another's perspectives
2) for each claim or idea that you put forth, justify your idea with at least two SOLID pieces of evidence & coherent reasoning (more evidence presents a stronger argument)
3) feel free to disagree and/or agree with each other, however know that you need to justify why you feel or think the way you do
4) any questionable content will not be posted
5) feel free to add topic-specific or claim-specific links, URLs, and images in your posts

Monday, October 31, 2011

Bioluminescence in Bugs

Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism as a result of a chemical reaction in which chemical energy is converted into light energy. Bioluminescence is a form of cold light emission, and less than 20% of the light is generated by thermal radiation. As the bug is emitting cold light, it is focusing a great deal of energy into not only producing light, but emitting warmth. As so much energy is going into emitting light, it would be impossible for the beetle to produce enough energy to create enough heat to reach a temperature in which combustion is possible. Combustion is an exothermic chemical reaction, in which heat is released and something is burned in the process. The temperature the bug would need to reach in order to combust is much too high for it to reach by merely emitting bioluminescence, which is not only cold light, but is focused on producing both light and warmth, and has no energy or heat left over in order for it to reach the temperature necessary for combustion.

"Chemistry - Bioluminescence." Chemistry Daily - Articles on Every Chemistry Topic. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)