Ask A Scientist© Molecular Biology Archive

name        Lance
status      other
age         15

Question -  I have read on the Internet that the energy present
around a cell's membrane is 300 milliwatts. Since the human body contains
over 100 trillion cells, that must mean that we contain a huge amount of
power. Do you think this is true?

Perhaps you can give us a URL to check this out ourselves. 300 milliwatts
sounds like a tremendous amount of power for a little cell to be churning
out. If that number is true, we should all be fireballs, kicking out 30
gigawatts each. This obviously is NOT the case.

Perhaps the reference was to an electric potential, in millivolts?

Richard E. Barrans Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Director
PG Research Foundation, Darien, Illinois
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It depends on how you look at it...every atom has nuclear binding forces
with energy associated...every molecule has bond energy between its
atoms...there are gazillions ( a very big number ) of molecules in a human
body. Someone I know sometime ago estimated the bond energy (potential
energy) and found it to be near a large atomic bombs energy...one thing...to
usefully harness that energy is another thing altogether.

pf
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