The term scalawag was originally used as far back as the 1840s to describe a farm animal of little value; it later came to refer to a worthless person. For opponents of Reconstruction, scalawags were even lower on the scale of humanity than carpetbaggers, as they were viewed as traitors to the South.
Enzymes speed up reactions by lowering the activation energy of the reaction concerned. The enzyme creates a lower energy pathway than if the enzyme wasn't there. For example, â¦ hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, decomposes when it gets warmer to H2O(l) and O2(g).
The reduction in the amount of required activation energy allows for the reaction to occur more quickly (without raising the temperature) and thus increase the rate at which a reaction occurs. So the take home message is that enzymes increase the rate of a given reaction by reducing the need for activation energy.