An Investigation to Show How Water Temperature and Alcohol Concentratio

An Investigation to Show How Water Temperature and Alcohol Concentration Affect Membrane permeablenessAim The aim of the experiment is to show the cells membranepermeability is affected by cosmos placed into unalike temperaturesof water. Also the set of placing beetroot in to differentconcentrations of alcohol.Beetroot cells contain a red sap, which leaks out of the cells iftheir membranes are damage or altered. Cell membranes are made up ofa bi story of phospholipids, which also contains proteins. Which eitherfloat around or are fixed. Some are found in the inner or outer layerand some span the whole membrane Carbohydrate chains attach themselvesto the external membrane forming glycoproteins and glycolipids. Italso contains cholesterol. We will be able to tell how damaged theyare because we will see a deeper coloured red in the water from wheremore of the red sap has leaked out of the cells.Method A new cylinder of beetroot was taken and using a scalpel anyskin was removed. Ca re should be taken when a scalpel is used to cutobjects into small pieces. It was whence cut into 40 discs using thescalpel. Next the discs were placed in a boiling tube and rinsedrepeatedly in till the water ran clear. Then twain sets of quin boilingtubes were set up into racks. Then using a measuring cylinder measured10cm of tap water was placed in five of the boiling tubes of the setthat would be testing the effect of different temperatures. These werethen left in the different water baths to adjust to the temperature.The other five had 10cm different concentrations of alcohol rangingfrom 25%-100%. There was also one with 10cm of water. Next four discsof the beetroot were placed into each boil... ...es down to 24%. I think this an paradoxicalresult as after researching this 100% alcohol is used to preserve foodso the light transmission percentage should of gone up only if this neededto be repeated.I think the main source of error in these two experiments that couldhave less ened the accuracy was that there was some chromosomal mutation in thethickness of some of the beetroot discs. I think this is hard toimprove as this is generally down to human error of not being able tocut beetroot exactly into 1-2mm discs. The experiment needed to berepeated to see more clearly if there were any anomalous results. deeds CitedAdvanced Sciences Biology 1, Mary Jones, Richard Fosberyand Dennis TaylorAS guru Biology, John Graham and Anthony LewisBiology Principles and Processes, Michael Roberts, Michael Reiss andGrace MongerWww.bbc.co.uk/asguru/biology