Page 139 - The Miracle in the Cell Membrane
P. 139
Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)
ing moist or dry which is not in a Clear Book" (Surat al-
An'am, 59). Allah pos sess es knowl edge of every thing.
Research has revealed that the ion chan nels are not
always open, but work like gates or cir cuit break ers,
allow ing pas sage to just one vari e ty of ion. Eric Young, a
pro fes sor of bio med i cal engi neer ing at Johns Hopkins
University, refers to the select iv i ty of ion chan nels in
these terms:
The most strik ing prop er ty of ion chan nels is their select iv i ty
for dif fer ent ions. Channels are classed as potas si um, sodi um,
cal ci um or chlo ride chan nels, based on the ions that can per -
me ate. Often chan nels are able to select between chem i cal ly
almost iden ti cal ions (e.g., sodi um and potas si um). . . . At
present, the por tions of the pro tein mol e cule respon si ble for
the select iv i ty of sev er al types of chan nels are known, but
detailed the o ries to explain the select iv i ty have not appeared.
Some aspects of ion select iv i ty of sodi um can be account ed for
by charge and size. But nei ther of these effects can count for
the rel a tive select iv i ty of sodi um, potas si um and cal ci um
chan nels. For exam ple, the sodi um ion Na+ is small er than
the potas si um ion K+ and has the same charge, but potas si um
chan nels dis crim i nate against sodi um by a fac tor of between
10 and 100. 43
As the above quo ta tion empha siz es, the selec tion
mech a nism in ion chan nels pos sess es a very com plex sys -
tem. The uncon scious mol e cu les mak ing up the chan nel
recog nize atoms' chem i cal struc tures and can dis tin guish
a sodi um ion (Na+) from a potas si um ion (K+), leav ing
sci en tists with ques tions in their minds. These chan nels
have an effect ive con trol mech a nism that lets them open
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