b.
5% solution
Now, when the egg is placed into the 5% salt solution from the 10% salt solution, the egg
will gain mass. This is because after coming out of the 10% salt solution it now contains a higher
concentration of salt than the 5% salt solution. The environment has now become hypotonic.
When the concentration of the extracellular fluid is less than the concentration of the cytoplasm
inside the egg’s cells, water will move into the egg (through the process of osmosis) to take care
of the imbalance of concentrations, thus increasing the mass of the egg.
c.
Tap water
Finally, when the egg is placed into the tap water, the environment once again becomes
hypotonic as the the concentration of extracellular fluid is lower than that of the concentrations
of the cell cytoplasms within the egg. Once again the concentrations aren’t equal, and so through
osmosis, the solvent, water, will enter the cells of the egg to compensate for the imbalance. This
moving of water into the egg’s cells will increase the mass of the egg.
4.
What do you think would happen if you left the egg in distilled water overnight?
I think what would happen to the egg if you left it in distilled water overnight is that
water would continue entering the egg’s cells until it reached an isotonic environment. Through
the process of osmosis water would enter the egg’s cells until the concentration of the
extracellular fluid and the concentration of cytoplasm of the egg's cells were equal.
5.
What do you think would happen if you put an egg in distilled water for eight
minutes, then placed it in a 10 percent salt solution for eight minutes?
I think that if you placed the egg in distilled water for 8 minutes, then placed it into a
10% salt solution for 8 minutes, the egg would have a similar mass to that of what it started with.
Hypothetically, when the egg is placed into the distilled water, it will expand due to osmosis as
the water will enter the egg’s cells to compensate for the imbalance of solvent concentration,
than for the same amount of time (8 minutes) it will lose water when placed into the 10% salt
solution to again compensate for the concentration difference (Solute
ECF
> Solute
CYTO
). In a
perfect world I’d assume that the mass of the egg would end up exactly the same, however, in the
real world, I’m sure other factors will come into play (such as rate of absorption & desorption) so
I predict that the mass of the egg will be close to that of the initial mass but not the exact same.
6.
In the procedure, do you think anything other than water passed between the egg
and the solutions? What information would you need to have in order to determine
this experimentally?
During the procedure I do not believe that anything other than water passed through the
egg and out. Eggs have semi permeable membranes, which means that only selective things can
pass through them, water being one of them. The information that we would need to have in
order to determine my theory experimentally would be the initial concentration of the salt
solution, and the final concentration (after leaving the egg in it for a bit). If we subtract the two,
we would be able to determine whether any salt passed through the membrane or not. If the
concentration lowered, salt passed through and if it remained the same, salt did not pass through.
