News from the ROAR lab at the Ohio State University

Approximately 60% to 95% of the weight of living organisms is attributed to water. Therefore, maintaining appropriate water balance within cells is of paramount importance. Osmosis is the movement of water across a semipermeable membrane, such as a cell’s plasma membrane. In living organisms, water plays a crucial role as a solvent—a molecule that dissolves other molecules.Diffusion Versus OsmosisBoth diffusion and osmosis are types of passive transport—cellular transport that does not require...

The sense of smell is achieved through the activities of the olfactory system. It starts when an airborne odorant enters the nasal cavity and reaches olfactory epithelium (OE). The OE is protected by a thin layer of mucus, which also serves the purpose of dissolving more complex compounds into simpler chemical odorants. The size of the OE and the density of sensory neurons varies among species; in humans, the OE is only about 9-10 cm2.
The olfactory receptors are embedded in the cilia of the...

The retina is a layer of nervous tissue at the back of the eye that transduces light into neural signals. This process, called phototransduction, is carried out by rod and cone photoreceptor cells in the back of the retina.

Accessory organs are those that participate in the digestion of food but do not come into direct contact with it like the mouth, stomach, or intestine do. Accessory organs secrete enzymes into the digestive tract to facilitate the breakdown of food.