Week Three

I want to thank you 19 wonderful people who took the time out to read my scattered thoughts last week. I really appreciate the support :) Ok now I am open to all comments for clarification, rectification, complementation. SO this weeks I have to take a different approach on the blog. I have to be more investigative. We did a lab this week that displayed the results of osmosis and diffusion. Before I continue, I clearly have to define these terms for you. Osmosis is: the tendency of water to move across a cell membrane in response to a concentration gradient (osmosis is a type of diffusion). Diffusion is: the net movement of molecules (or ions) down their concentration gradient (that is that whole concept of something moving from a high concentration to a lower one). We did a lab on Tuesday and it explored these types of diffusions. It also asked a question that integrated the lab with real life. The question was about a disease called Cholera. I, being Haitian, am very familiar with this disease. There was an epidemic of cholera that hit my country after the earthquake. What is cholera? Well according to some credible resource on Google, cholera is: an infectious and often fatal bacterial disease of the small intestine, typically contracted from infected water supplies and causing severe vomiting and diarrhea. Medical News Today says that approximately 3-5 million people are affected world wide. Cholera has a death toll of about 100,000-130,000 deaths a year since 2010. Since cholera is mainly deadly because of the large amount of diarrhea and dehydration that occurs, it reminds me of our lab. In the lab there was sucrose in iodide and iodide in sucrose. Each of them had different reactions to the solvent. There was a beaker where most of the water had drained from one of the dialysis bags. I can imagine that this resembles the inner organs when they are lacking water. I attempted to make a connection with osmosis during a lab to a real life disease that displays the results in the lab. I hope it worked! Have a great weekend.