Does food matter more than the structure of DNA or Potassium Ferrate?

The three articles read were by Dr. Joe Schwarz’s “Food Matters”, Watson and Crick’s “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid” and, Potts and Churchwell’s “Removal of Radionuclides in wastewaters utilizing Potassium Ferrate (VI).” Each of the articles had one thing in common they all had something to do with chemistry. In Food Matters, Schwarz describes the different chemicals found in everyday food, how they work, what they are good for and even includes their disadvantages. Watson and Crick’s article makes claims of their findings and goes on to propose a structure of DNA. Pott’s and Churchwell’s article describes the use of a certain chemical potassium ferrate in the removal of radionuclides in a wastewater facility. Potassium ferrate (K2FeO4) has already been identified as wastewater treatment chemical and the purpose of their experiment was to determine the most effective way to use K2FeO4 and the optimal pH at which most radionuclides are removed. The three articles though related to chemistry were meant to target very different audiences and were written in very contrasting ways.

Food matters was an article directed toward a much broader range of audiences, more specifically to those that have not really had higher level chemistry courses but are health conscious. I found this article to be a very easy read. Schwarz goes on to describe certain terms in the article for example ‘receptors’, which a science student easily understands due to their exposure in the field but for instance someone like my grandmother would not really comprehend. Despite my being a chemistry student I still found out some things in the article that I didn’t know for instance when eating spicy foods which is common in most Indian homes, there is always a generous supply of yogurt. Capsaicin, the chemical found in chillies which is responsible for the pain doesn’t dissolve in water, it dissolves in fat containing liquids such as whole milk. I now understand why no amount of water would help me while I was trying to finish up a spicy curry and why my mother always said add some yogurt to your food. Another aspect of Schwarz’s article that I liked was how he gave quantities to the foods he described. He said three bars of chocolate a month is good enough, yet when I found out that chocolate had antioxidants I assumed I had to eat one everyday. His theme was basically these foods are good for you, but don’t consume too much because then that’s bad and in the end you still need exercise. Schwarz article doesn’t really include sources or studies.

Watson and Crick’s article was published in a journal called Nature. It was directed not only to those in the chemistry field but to those in a variety of scientific fields. During the time that they wrote this article there were a number of other scientists in the game to be the first to find the structure DNA. In a race to publish this was Watson and Crick’s first article and it describes complementary base pairing between nucleotides, how the phosphate backbones run anti-parallel to each other creating a double helix and so on and so forth. They do not go too much in depth about the structure and leave it to their next publication, and they build on other scientists work while refuting others. I found the paper to be an interesting read probably because I have had biology and have dealt with Watson and Crick in many of my classes. However the paper to someone in physics or chemistry that does not really use DNA might not even be worth reading.

Pott’s and Churchwell’s article on the effectiveness of using K2FeO4 to remove radionuclides was a very difficult read. After looking up some terms that I had never heard of before the paper became more understandable but it was not interesting to me. The paper was directed more towards those in the wastewater industry or in that particular area of study or those advocating against pollution. I feel that it was a harder read for me because I just didn’t care about what potassium ferrate did and how it worked or what optimal pH it worked at because I will probably never use it. The writing was very different and took a more scientific approach than the others, with more experimental information and data. The paper did not really focus on how potassium ferrate worked and gave very little on the mechanism; it instead focused more on the best way to use potassium ferrate. However after reading the article I feel that I have learned something about how the water we use everyday is treated.