Biochemistry is a complicated subject and the biochemistry student is taxed by having to learn the names of many of the leading orthodox biochemical molecules that (to switch metaphors) play �starring roles.�
Those "stars" appear in many a biochemical production, sometimes in differing roles. Plants give off oxygen, one of the staring molecules, while animals inhale it.
Beyond that, there are many, many lesser orthodox molecules which might have an fairly obscure function of some kind. Those might be said to correspond to character actors in movies. Beyond that, in the outer biochemical darkness is the set of possible unorthodox molecules.To repeat, as in the English language, the unorthodox set is much larger than the orthodox set.
Those unorthodox molecules never make it into the biochemical movies at all as individual specific molecules.
I suppose any given molecule, whether orthodox or not, could theoretically be named by the chemical naming protocol. (I�m not expert on that protocol.) But, generally speaking, no one would care to devise names for unorthodox molecules that are only rarely, if ever, brought into existence. In any case, there are too many of those �nobody molecules� to make a full listing possible, except as an exercise in theoretical mathematical enumeration--at least at this time.
So we don�t speak of unorthodox molecules as individuals. But we can speak of them as a set or class. And to reiterate at the risk of being tiresome, there are many more unorthodox permutations than orthodox.
Note that the above isn�t the same thing as saying that the total biomass represented by unorthodox molecules is larger than the orthodox biomass. In a peat bog that might be true. But I�d guess that in a healthy human it would probably not be true.
The �starring� orthodox molecules turn up again and again in biochemical discussions regardless of what organism one may be talking about. In addition to oxygen, those include glucose, the naturally-occurring amino acids, ATP, and so on. In any ecological system, usually the most numerous orthodox molecules are those which are main actors. Nevertheless, certain randomizing physical processes are continually at work, which cause orthodox molecules to undergo change. Slow oxidation, metabolic mistakes, rapid burning, the action of free radicals, and alterations brought about by solar radiation�all those processes continuously produce new unorthodox molecules.
And wouldn't irradiation of food or mail do the same thing?
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