Ethanol (ch3ch2oh) is the alcohol found in beverages. it is oxidized in the body to
acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase. methanol (ch3oh), also known as wood
alcohol, is converted to formaldehyde by the same enzyme. acetaldehyde is toxic, but
formaldehyde is far more toxic to humans, which is why the ingestion of relatively small
amounts of methanol can cause blindness or death. one treatment for mild methanol
poisoning is the administration of ethanol. why might a doctor choose this treatment?
a) the ethanol is likely an uncompetitive inhibitor and binds to a site other than the active
site of the enzyme.
b) ethanol must act as a competitive inhibitor for the alcohol dehydrogenase and therefore
slows the formation of formaldehyde.
c) the doctor has given up on the patient and administers ethanol for sedation.
d) ethanol likely irreversibly binds to alcohol dehydrogenase which prevents the formation
of formaldehyde.

B) Ethanol must act as a competitive inhibitor for the alcohol dehydrogenase and therefore slows the formation of formaldehyde.

Explanation:

An inhibitor is a substance that binds to an enzime and prevents it to react with a substrate. In this case, the inhibitor is ethanol, binding to the enzime (alcohol dehydrogenase) and preventing it to react with methanol and thus from it form the toxic formaldehyde.

A competitive inhibitor has a similar structure to the substrate, that is why it binds to the same active site. In this case, ethanol has a similar structure to methanol, which is why the answer is B and not A.

most historians agree that gabriel mouton, the vicar of st. paul’s church in lyons, france, is the “founding father” of the metric system. he proposed a decimal system of measurement in 1670. mouton based it on the length of one minute of arc of a great circle of the earth (now called a nautical mile, 1852 meters). he also proposed the swing-length of a pendulum with a frequency of one beat per second as the unit of length (about 25 cm). a pendulum beating with this length would have been fairly easy to produce, thus facilitating the widespread distribution of uniform standards. over the years, his work was revised, improved, and extended by a number of french scientists.

the political sponsor of weights and measures reform in the french revolutionary national assembly was the bishop of autun, better known as talleyrand. under his auspices, the french academy appointed several committees to carry out the work of developing a usable system of weights and measures for france. one of the committees recommended a decimalized measurement system based upon a length equal to one ten-millionth of the length of a quadrant of the earth’s meridian (i.e., one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the north pole).