h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Carbohydrates - A2383201
Author: Patron Saint of Kittens... aka Pantherlady who's an owltrons thundercat and is THE Werepanther of h2g2 - U222826

You mention ATP when talking about glucose, is there an ATP edited entry you can link to there, or if not, could you put a quick sentence in just saying what ATP is and what its funciton is for those not in the know? looks good though I'll try to have a more througher read later

ok... will just dash and look.

hows that?

The entry you've linked to isn't edited - edited entries can only link to other edited entries. You should either find an edited entry explaining ATP, or write a short explanation yourself. You could even write a whole entry on ATP yourself and put it in PR.

ok, i get it. I think. Will go write a couple o sentences. ATP is not my favourite thing in the world to explain. Hmmmm.

Does that help at all? Or does it need to be more?

http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/atp/atp1.htm is a good link for ATP, and tells us what the letters mean.

So can i link to an outside site then?

This has the makings of a very useful article, methinks.

But the article is very 'dry' as it is.
It says what carbohydrates are but should probably expand on it more and say what they do - why they are important etc.

2/3

"So can i link to an outside site then?"
ATP

2of3 is right - this entry is quite dry and academic. It's been written for someone who already has a good knowledge of organic chemistry.

You don't have to explain everything, but you should assume that people reading this will have little grounding in the subject matter. Try to pitch it to someone about halfway between Homer Simpson and Lisa Simpson in terms of IQ


Scout

PSK, you mention 'all either aldehydes or ketones' but without mentioning it again, or what it signified. I think it needs an explanation.

There's an organic chemistry nomenclature University project, so aldehydes and ketones are defined and linkable.

I know that external links are at the whim of the subeditor, but I put some in my own Edited Entry, and they were accepted (see the links to mayonnaise and mustard in the Edited Entry Sherried Eggs).

It's not clear to me why there's a mention of the various cycles. Are they inherently carbohydrate-y in some way? What do they do that they are so important that they are relevant to the chemicals in question?

What's a respiratory substrate? Do carbohydrates breathe? Do all air-breathing critters need these chemicals, even aerobic bacteria?

Carbohydrates are often talked about in terms of diets and food value. Scientifically this may not be important, but its certainly something everyone has heard of. Is there some reason this is not part of the article?

I wondered that too!

Hmmm...

Maybe this also helps: Carbohydrates are called carbohydrates because, before people knew anything more convincing about structures, they only had the sum-formula. It is C(H2O)n suggesting that it is a hydrate of carbon. Also carbohydrates are not *just* aldehydes or ketones...

Anyways... I have to read it more thoroughly later on, up to now it's looking good!

HELL

How's this going?

havent had much time recently coz of exams, but its now back on my list of things todo.

Hi Panthalady, how did the exams go? I imagine it's near results time now.

This entry's pretty darn good! I do hope that you'll be able to work on it ... After all with low carb diets being so popular nowadays it's really useful to know what carbs actually are!

Hello Pantherlady ,

My first impression of this article was that it read too much like a high school or college textbook passage. Remember that not everybody who reads this is a scientist. It's no problem for those of us who have studied biology, but it may be somewhat hard to follow for the layperson who has no scientific background.

In the first place, your definition of carbohydrates is somewhat ambiguous. I think that you may want to say that carbohydrates consist of sugars, starch and fibres when you first explain what carbohydrates are to the layman, and *then* go into the chemical composition of carbohydrates, rather than leave the reader boggled. Carbohydrates do consist of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, true - but you should also mention that the general formula for carbs is C[m][H20]n, because there are plenty of other organic compounds around that have all these three, and people might be mistaken in thinking that anything comprising of C,H and O are carbs.

Instead of saying, 'The functions of carbohydrates, although variable, are in the main concerned with storage and liberation of energy', you could simply say that the primary function of carbohydrates is to provide and/or store energy (which I think would pack more of a punch).

If you choose to use 'technical' terms like aldehydes and ketones in your article, it would be better for you to say what they are as well, instead of leaving the reader to find it out for himself/herself. Ditto stuff like triose and pentose, and glycosidic. Even 'hydrolysis' (breakage of bonds by water), which may sound commonplace, should be defined clearly. An article, no matter how complex it is, is of no use if the reader cannot understand it.

You might want to clarify the meaning of respiration lest readers think sugars breathe, as well! You don't have to get down to the mechanism; saying that it is process by which chemical energy is released from a compound in a series of metabolic steps involving the consumption of oxygen and the liberation of carbon dioxide and water will suffice. There's no need to mention the glycolysis cycle; if you do, you're going to find yourself neck deep in water because *then* you'll have to explain the Krebs cycle as well!

A note on ATP (adenosine triphosphate) - it is a high-energy molecule whose energy is stored in its extremely powerful phosphate bonds; breaking of these bonds will release a large amount of energy.

You might also want to point out that excess carbohydrate can be converted to fat.

All this article needs is a little reworking; all the facts are already there. Lookin good!

Cheers,
Farlander.

*nudge*

Researcher PSG