Cell Membrane Structure

     Cells are composed of two distinctive environments.  The two distinctive environments are Hydrophilic aqueous cytoplasm and hydrophobic lipid membranes.  There are three members of the lipids family that i have learned, the three members are fats, phospholipids, and steroids.

     The structure of lipids are made up of 16 to 18 carbons.  Lipids are hydrophobic, that means that they don't like water.  Lipids do many things in organisms, they are components of wax, pigments, steroid hormones, and cell membranes.  Phospholipids are very important function in cell membranes.  Fats are synthesized from two different classes of molecules.  Fatty acids are 16 to 22 carbons long.  Fatty acids can be two types: saturated or unsaturated.  Saturated fatty acids have no carbon-carbon double bond, which is more healthier than unsaturated fatty acids.  Unsaturated fatty acids are sticky and lumpy, which crowd you body and their not healthy.  "Kinks"  are what the carbon-carbon double bonds are called.  The double carbon bonds are not to healthy for you.
    Phospholipids contain only two fatty acids attached to a glycerol head.  The phosphate is the head of the phospholipids.  3 carbons make up a glycerol.  One carbon is attached to the phosphate.  The other two carbons are attached to fatty acids.  The  fatty acids attached to the other two carbon could be saturated fatty acids or unsaturated fatty acids.  These are the simples functions of a cell membrane structure.
Click here to see the site where i got this information.

Carbohydrates: FAILED TEST =(

I failed my carbohydrate test, but after my concept map I understood them more.  Monosaccharides are simple sugar bonds.  For example Glucose is a monosaccharide.  If there are six carbon atoms joined together its called a hexose. Two monosaccharides joined together are disaccharides.  When glucose and fructose (two monosaccharides) are joined together it forms a disaccharide called sucrose or table sugar.  Table sugar is used in many food products today.  Polysaccharides are polymers of monosaccharides. This means that they are part of each other  Polysaccharides are short-term energy storage molecules.  Examples of Polysaccharides are starches and glycogen. Plants store glucose as starch.  Animals store glucose as glycogen.  Cellulose is also a Polysaccharide, which is in plants.  Chitin is a polysaccharide in animals and fungi.  So as you can tell i did very horrible on my test but after i did my concept map i really understood carbohydrates better.

This table sugar is an example of a disaccharide.
Monosaccharide + Monosaccharide = Disaccharide.(table sugar)













This is a structure of a monosaccharide.
The picture below is Glucose, which is a monosaccharide.

Carbohydrate Concept Map