Scribe 10/10/11

Hey everyone!!

Today we took lots of notes on what exactly we saw while doing the plasmolysis lab and the enzyme lab. Here they are...

Plasmolysis Lab

• So imagine that inside of the cell, there is 99% water and 1% salt.
  
• Then, you put that cell into a pool of water, which is 99% water and 1% salt, too. What would happen?? Well, since the combination of water on the inside is the same as the outside, the equilibrium is already reached. However, the cells will still be moving, but evenly (or with no net movement).
• But.... if that cell is in a pool of water with 6% salt and 94% water, water will move from the inside to the outside of the cell because...

THINGS MOVE FROM HIGH (concentration) TO LOW (concentration)!

• Because of that phrase, water will move out of the cell, causing the cell membrane to shrink since when things lose water they tend to shrivel up like you can see in this picture to the right.
• Now, in class we used the red blood cell as an example. What if the cell had 99% water and 1% salt while the pool of water the whole cell is in is 100% water? Water would go into the cell because THINGS MOVE FROM HIGH TO LOW.
• BUT... this time is different. The water will go into the cell and so the cell will expand and since the don't have a cell wall, they'll BURST, which can be deadly.
• That process by which a cell explodes when it is in a higher concentration of water is called cytolysis (cyto-cell, lysis-break open).

Enzyme Lab

• Catalase is most usually found in the blood.
• We would expect catalase to work best, or have the largest amount of activity, at 37ºC (our body temperature, since they are usually found in our bodies).
• Enzymes are NOT ALIVE
• Enzymes are made of proteins, which are also not living and at extreme temperature they get denatured (or broken down).
• What should have happened... The graph for the whole class data should have started off really low and increased so the highest point was at 37ºC and then it would have decreased again... kinda like a hill.

Homework: Finish Enzyme and Plasmolysis labs for tomorrow, finish UP pg 55 and Cancer Survey for tomorrow, and read section 10.2 and do a flow chart for Wednesday.

The next scribe will be: Kasia