Richard Clark wrote:
...
73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC
Well, come to think of it, that won't do now, will it?
I mean your education in biology is probably just as lacking as in all
the other sciences you have demonstrated here ...
This:
"Human blood plasma has an osmotic pressure of about 290 mOsm and water
from the open ocean has an osmotic pressure of about 1010 mOsm. This
indicates that there is much more salt in sea water than in human blood
plasma and also that there is less pure water in a liter of sea water
than in a liter of plasma. Just as ions diffuse from areas of high
concentration in a solution to areas of low concentration, so do water
molecules diffuse from areas of high water concentration (= low osmotic
pressure) to areas of low water concentration (= high osmotic pressure).
In considering this it is well to remember that salt added to water
lowers the water concentration of the resulting solution. When water
diffuses through membranes such as those around cells (called
semipermeable membranes because they are nearly impermeable to ions but
very permeable to water), this diffusion of water is called osmosis.
Osmosis is the reason that the skin on our hands wrinkles into "prune
fingers" when we stay too long in the bath or shower. Water diffuses
from the higher water concentration (but low salt concentration) of the
fresh water in the bath into the lower water concentration (but higher
salt concentration) of our skin, causing it to swell and be thrown into
wrinkles. The exact opposite happens when we immerse ourselves in sea
water at the beach and our skin, particularly on our hands and faces,
shrinks by osmosis and feels tight."
From he
http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/osmoticprimer.html
Feel free to investigate other sites, perhaps harvard.edu?
Regards,
JS