Question

You get home from school and grab a bag of potato chips before settling onto the couch to binge watch your newest Netflix series. A few hours later, you notice that all of the chips are gone and you feel very thirsty. You get up to go to the bathroom before grabbing a drink and notice your urine is exceptionally dark in color. Apply what you know about osmosis to explain what has happen to the cells in your body. Include the name for the type of solution the cells were in after eating and how the cells attempted to maintain homeostasis despite these salty conditions.

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

Osmosis is the process in which the molecules of a solvent move from a region of low concentration to a region of higher concentration through a semi-permeable barrier.

While eating the chips, the salt content from the chips makes the surrounding solution of the cells to have an increase in salt concentration causing an hypertonic solution. An hypertonic solution is a solution that has more solute (salt) than the (solute in a) cell. This increase in salt concentration around the cells causes the cells to release water to neutralize the high salt concentration in the solution around the cell (in order to maintain homeostasis) which causes dehydration in the individual and hence making the individual to be thirsty. The body attempts to maintain balance by passing this excess salt out of the body in the form of urine hence the reason for the dark colour in the urine (because if the body doesn't rid itself of the high salt concentration, the cells could shrink and die as a result).