Why Are Cells Powered by Proton Gradients?

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Submitted by Jeremiah Cornelius on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @07:38PM

Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Virtually all cells "breathe" by pumping protons, in the form of hydrogen ions, across a membrane. Molecular biologist Leslie Orgel considers this the single most counterintuitive idea in biology after Darwin's, and the only one to bear comparison with the concepts of Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Einstein. Brainchild of biochemist Peter Mitchell, the concept was controversial for a twenty year period now known as the "ox-phos wars". The wars drew to an end only after Mitchell received the Nobel Prize in 1978. Complex life is dependent on this process, but only now are the pertinent questions being asked, about why this is so."
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