
Turns out there are two legitimatizing biological needs for cobalt: Vitamin B12 and nitrogen fixation.
Vitamin B12 is an essential nutrient. We use it for cool things like extracting energy from proteins and fats - that is, burning your body's fuel to function. Cyanocobalamin, in the parlance of chemistry, is also a large, unwieldy compound that can't be formed by plants or animals. Notably, this vital, life-would-cease-to-exist-without-it nutrient is synthesized by micro-organisms only: Bacteria and Archaea 1; higher plants and animals 0.
Nitrogen, which is utilized extensively by plants in cell construction and photosynthesis, is plentiful in the atmosphere (78% of it, in fact) but in the biologically inert form of di-nitrogen N2. Some plants - like legumes or Ceanothus - have convinced microbes to live on/within roots and transform N2 into active forms of Nitrogen in exchange for carbohydrates or energy. These symbioses tend to benefit both the plant and the microbe; one recieves an otherwise limiting nutrient (Nitrogen) and the other recieves a steady source of sustenance.
Without Cobalt, none of this happens. We're sorry Cobalt, we had no idea... we were just joking about the "useless" barb. Please don't hurt us.
No comments:
Post a Comment