Energy Cycle from Plants to Animals

Energy Cycle in Living Things

生物体中的能量循环

A fascinating parallel between plant and animal life is in the use of tiny energy factories within the cells to handle the energy transformation processes necessary for life. Both animal and plant cells contain mitochondria and plants have the additional energy factories called chloroplasts. The chloroplasts collect energy from the sun and use carbon dioxide and water in the process called photosynthesis to produce sugars. Animals can make use of the sugars provided by the plants in their own cellular energy factories, the mitochondria. These energy factories produce a versatile energy currency in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This high-energy molecule stores the energy we need to do just about everything we do.

植物与动物生命之间有一个引人入胜的相似之处，即它们都利用细胞内的微小能量工厂来处理维持生命所必需的能量转换过程。动物和植物细胞都含有线粒体，而植物还有额外的能量工厂，称为叶绿体。叶绿体从阳光中收集能量，并利用二氧化碳和水在光合作用这一过程中产生糖类。动物可以利用植物提供的糖类在其自身的细胞能量工厂——线粒体中加以利用。这些能量工厂产生了一种 versatile 的能量货币，形式为腺苷三磷酸（ATP）。这种高能分子储存了我们进行几乎所有活动所需的能量。

The energy cycle for life is fueled by the Sun. The main end product for plants and animals is the production of highly energetic molecules like ATP . These molecules store enough immediately available energy to allow plants and animals to do their necessary work.

生命的能量循环由太阳驱动。植物和动物的主要终产物是产生高能分子，如ATP。这些分子储存了足够的即时可用能量，使植物和动物能够完成其必要的工作。

The Work of Living Things

生物体的功

There are a number of energy transformations in plants and animals which are essential to life. These processes will be described as the "work" of living things, although it is not immediately evident that they involve work in the physical sense. Some of the general kinds of processes involved in the energy cycle are:

植物和动物中存在多种能量转换，这些过程对生命至关重要。这些过程将被描述为“生物的功”，尽管它们在物理意义上是否涉及功尚不明显。能量循环中涉及的一些一般性过程包括：

Synthetic Work

合成功

Both plants and animals must make the complex molecules necessary for life. One example is the production of DNA - your genetic material. If you don't make extra copies of DNA, you will have no information to pass on to your offspring. Every time one of your cells makes a copy of itself, it has to make a new copy of the DNA. That synthesis process requires a lot of ATP.

植物和动物都必须合成生命所需的复杂分子。一个例子是DNA的合成——你的遗传物质。如果你不能复制DNA，你就无法将信息传递给后代。每次你的细胞分裂时，它都必须制作新的DNA拷贝。这个合成过程需要大量的ATP。

The process of growth requires a lot of synthetic work to create the new cells and enlarge the structures.

生长过程需要大量的合成功来生成新细胞并扩大结构。

Electrical Work

电功

You may not think of yourself as an electrically operated machine, but you are. Each of our cells has an electric potential associated with it. This potential, or voltage, helps to control the migration of ions across the cell membranes. A major example of electrical work is in the operation of the nerves. When your nerves fire, they generate an electrical impulse called an action potential which can communicate information to your brain, or carry a signal from your brain to a muscle to initiate its movement.

你可能不会把自己视为一种电气操作的机器，但你确实如此。我们每一个细胞都与其电势相关联。这种电势，或电压，有助于控制离子在细胞膜上的迁移。电工作用的一个主要例子是在神经运作中的表现。当你神经元放电时，它们会产生一种称为动作电位的电信号，可以将信息传递给你的大脑，或者将信号从大脑传递到肌肉，以启动其运动。

Electrical energy transformation is essential for sensing your environment as well as for reacting to that environment in any way.

电能转换对于感知环境以及以任何方式对环境作出反应都是至关重要的。

Mechanical Work

机械功

Most easily visualized is the mechanical work associated with the moving of our muscles. This muscle movement is very important and requires a lot of energy. The source of that energy is ATP.

最容易想象的是与肌肉运动相关的机械功。这种肌肉运动非常重要，需要大量的能量。这种能量的来源是ATP。