Question

what property of water is most important for living organisms

Answer 1

Water disassociates to form hydrogen ions(H+) and hydroxyl (OH-) in small quanitities. This is important for living things because the number of ions in the solutions inside organisms affects the shape and functioning of many of the molecules. The concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution is so important that scientists use a special scale, the pH scale to measure this concentration.

http://staff.jccc.net/pdecell/chemistry/water.html

Answer 2

Welcome to OpenStudy @Chickenman ^_^

Answer 3

This really is an arguable point because water has a lot of amazing qualities. Sure, pH is nice for keeping things balanced and proteins in the right shape, but here are some other great points:

Water has a very negative oxygen and two positive hydrogen attached in a bent shape that makes it able to stick to other water molecules very strongly, which is called hydrogen bonding. This is the main reason why water has a high specific heat, is less dense when frozen, and can dissolve ions and molecules into it which are all REALLY important to life.

Water has a high specific heat, which means that it takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature by one degree compared to other things. This is particularly useful for maintaining a constant body temperature so you don't overheat or freeze!

Now because water has a bent shape, the hydrogen will bond to oxygen as temperatures start to go down forming a crystal shape with holes in it. This causes ice to float on top of water rather than sink like most solids and allows life to live in freezing water without being frozen solid! If ice didn't float, all the water in the world would eventually freeze, sink down to the depths of the ocean where no light could reach to melt it and everything would freeze over. Arguably one of the best water arguments for life!

Finally since life has a slightly positive and negative charge, it's able to weasel its way into things like salt and pull the positive and negative parts apart and dissolve them into solution without the animal's cells having to do much of any work at all. These ions are then used to create electricity in their bodies.

Answer 4

I think water's polarity is probably its most important property, because that influences many of the other things mentioned. Another thing that might help you: look up what hydrogen bonds are.