Please reply to the following discussion. Participate in the discussion by asking a question, providing a statement of clarification, providing a point of view with a rationale, challenging an aspect of the discussion, or indicating a relationship between two or more lines of reasoning in the discussion. Responses must consist of at least 135 words; do NOT repeat the same thing your classmate is saying. No reference is required.
M.W.
Free Radicals: When it comes to the term free radicals, I believe I have some sort of previous knowledge due to taking previous chemistry courses. I believe the everyday usage of this term would be to Signal your body's defense mechanisms but could also be harmful to the body in high concentrations such as smoke, pollution and more. I believe the way a chemist would use this term is that a free radical would be an antioxidant that plays a very important role in protecting ourselves from free radicals. I believe that the difference between everyday usage and the technical term is that there is a difference when it comes to specificity of it. The textbook would describe a free radical as a molecule, an ion or atom that has opened an electron shell or an unpaired number of valence electrons. I believe the similarity in this would essentially be the meaning of protection. For this discussion I did have to do some research on this but I believe this course will help me have a better understanding since I only have very minimal knowledge.
Vector: For this term, I believe I have a decent amount of knowledge due to taking microbiology and previous chemistry courses. In medicine, a vector is defined as a carrier of disease causing agent from an infected individual to something or someone who is not infected. We can also see this when it comes to food and environment. An example of this would be how mosquitoes are the vector that carry malaria and transmit it to humans through a mosquito bite. I feel with this term that there is not too much of everyday usage, but I do believe there are similar things that we use which can be related to this. When it comes to directions, a GPS is something that gets us from point A to point B, the same way a vector transmits a disease from one to another. for the way a chemist would use this term, I would Define it as a quantity that has both magnitude and direction as well as used to specify a position, velocity, and momentum of a particle. I believe this is a term which is related to the course outcomes due to how the chapter talks about its measurements of a particle. Through the few weeks before in this course, we have discussed atomic structure, and now we can use this term with how it relates to atoms. I believe the difference is how everyday language people don't use the actual term vector, but real life examples. I believe the chemistry technical term is different due to its more descriptive definition which relates purely to chemistry. Because I only know chemistry, I feel like I have a good understanding. I do believe in this case I would need to differentiate the chemistry usage of this term versus the medical usage of this term.
