Dr. Fazale Rana Talks About The Miraculous Nature of The Process of Nitrogen Fixation


- Can you tell us about the nitrogen cycle and its significance for the ecosystem?

- One of the key features for life to be possible on the planet would be the capacity to take nitrogen and to fix it, to convert it into a form that organisms could use as a source of nitrogen. The process of nitrogen fixation is a very elaborate biochemical process that is absolutely critical for life to exist. And so it’s got to be one of the very first metabolic systems that would emerge, and bacteria are playing a key role in nitrogen fixation. What is interesting is, many biologists believe that nitrogen fixation appeared also very early in the history of life on Earth, along with photosynthesis. In fact, the metabolic pathways that drive photosynthesis actually conflict with the metabolic processes that drive nitrogen fixation. So those two processes have to be separated in the way that bacteria separate them; it's the way that's called circadian rhythms. Or during the night nitrogen fixation takes place, during the day photosynthesis takes place. And that elaborate regulation of those two processes, to me, defies an evolutionary explanation and it's something that I think again reflects a Creator’s handiwork.


DEVAMINI GÖSTER

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