Explain why limp celery becomes crisp and the skin of your fingertips wrinkles when placed in tap water. (The principle is exactly the same
Cells, which compose both you and celery, are capable of taking up water by osmosis.
So the celery fills up with water, so to speak, and the skin cells in your fingers do tooPlants, while they are still green are still alive, [ and continuously trying to survive, they absorb water through small pores as a means of in-taking needed water, to maintain life. This refills the cells, whose cell walls have bowed inward due to the absence of the needed water, when re-hydrated the cells resume their desired size, pushing the cells walls out, thus restoring the structure of the plant cells and thus
firms the plants rigidy. This is why you see mist'ers in the grocery store, they are watering the plants to keep them fresher, or alive longer.
Your skin absorbs water through osmosis, in attempt to reach equilibrium with the solutes in your skin cells. basically your skin is being over saturated with water, thus increasing the size of the cells which wrinkles the skin as the surface area increases. ]
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Asked 11/12/2011 8:31:08 AM
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