DiscoverOsmosis

Welcome To The Living Lab

Osmosis is the diffusion of water from an area where water is high in concentration to an area where water is low in concentration, across a semi-permeable membrane. This is a video of some red blood cells from human blood surrounded by water and shows the effect of osmosis in living cells. Via osmosis water moves from outside of the cell, where it is at a high concentration, across the cell membrane and into the cell, where water is at a lower concentration than outside, due to the presence of other substances. You can see the red blood cells slowly growing in size as water moves via osmosis in to the cell from the surrounding water. Eventually the cells rupture releasing all of their contents which causes them to turn transparent.

Here, you are going to run your own experiment to explore how osmosis affects living animals.