Suppose you made a lettuce salad in the afternoon, added salt and other seasonings, and then put the salad in the refrigerator. When you took the salad out of the refrigerator for dinner, the lettuce looked wilted and some water was in the bottom of the bowl. Use the principles of osmosis to explain what happened.

Water molecules must have moved out of the lettuce by osmosis.

The addition of salt and other seasonings must have created a hypertonic ambiance for the cells of the lettuce.

Water usually moves osmotically from regions of lower solute concentration (high water potential) to regions of high solute concentration (low water potential).

Thus, water will move out of the cells of the lettuce to the surrounding (bottom of the bowl) due to the lower water potential of the surrounding.

More on osmosis and water potential can be found here; link

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Explanation:

Osmosis refers to the movement of solvent (mostly water) molecules through a selectively (semi) permeable membrane from a region of lower solute concentration to a region of higher solute concentration, in such a way as to equate the solute concentrations on both sides.

The salt (solute) is in higher concentration outside the lettuce. Hence, water moves from inside the lettuce where there is lower salt concentration outwards to the point of higher solute concentration in order to equate the salt concentration on both sides.

the correct answer is:

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