Sunday, October 17, 2010

Reflection Chapter 6.2-6.3

  • This is what I learned about, the motion of substances in the membrane. Movement in a cell does not simply consist of floating around. But instead, different substances are allowed in certain places that others may not be. Diffusion describes when substances are allowed to travel all over. While a selectively permeable membrane stops some particles from going in the direction they intended. The term passive transport describes Diffusion across a membrane, which pretty much means the particles freely float around the membrane as they wait to possibly enter without any expended energy.
  • What i found difficult about what i have studied is, the concept of osmosis. I don't understand the difference between osmosis and isotonic. I know isotonic describes the equilibrium of a solvent and solute but does that mean that osmosis is only describing what it takes for the solution to become equilibrium?
  • How is structure related to function?
The structure of a membrane dictates its function. Many membrane have the same content, its the way that they organize themselves that makes them have different functions. If the structure of a membrane does not turn out correctly its function will not work. For example, if a hydrophobic tail ended up facing the outside, the function may be mute because it does not like water. When the structure of a membrane is deformed or cut apart we call it denatured and is considered dead.
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4 comments:

  1. Connor SpragueOctober 25, 2010 at 7:48 AM

    Hi Kinsey! I hope I am able to help you! Isotonic is actually is more of the concentrationof solutes are equal. Osmosis is more of a passive transport of water molecules across a selctively permeable membrane. Osmosis is really just water being moved to where needed ( kinda like diffusion but not really) Isotonic can invovle water but, can also involve molecules. Isotonic is also more of a solution for water or solutes. Equilibrium should really be used for when describing blanced, non- living things. I hope this helps!
    -Connor Sprague

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  2. Johne McMahonOctober 25, 2010 at 6:31 PM

    Osmosis is the transport of water across a selectively permeable membrane. A good example of this is on page 120 figure 6-13, it shows a diagram on the differences between osmosis and equilibrium. And the difference is that in an Equilibrium the concentrations are Isotonic meaning to be equal.

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  3. Elianah GorinOctober 28, 2010 at 5:39 PM

    Osmosis can be very simple the only real difference between diffusion and osmosis is that in osmosis it is the transfer of water instead of particles of a substance. The water is still wanting to move from a more concentrated area to where it is less concentrated, in relation to hyper and hypo tonic solutions where the water needs to move to try to equally balance the salute.

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  4. SahareWOctober 28, 2010 at 7:17 PM

    You know about diffusion, right? The process in which molecules move across the cell membrane. Well just connect that with water. Osmosis is simply the transfer of water, versus individual molecules. An isotonic solution occurs when during osmosis(the transfer of water), there is a balance between the concentration of the solute and the solvent(equilibrium). Hope that helped, great question!

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