Biology Question?

Question

This is a lab that we did in class, but the explanation makes no sense, we need to know the concepts for the test. In beaker 1, is plain distilled water. A slice of cucumber is put in it. In beaker 2, a slice of cucumber the same size is placed in a water and salt mixture. Let it sit for 45 mins. And wa-laaa! The slice of cucumber placed in distilled water is firm, and hard. The slice placed in the salt mixture is flimsy, and essentially--dead. It shrunk, and it wobbles. Why does the cucumber react so differently? What's the scientific explanation?

Answer 1

Voila!, it's osmosis! In the beaker containing water, the water diffused into the the cells in the cucumber slice, making the slice firm. In the beaker containing water and salt, water diffused out of the cucumber cells and the cucumber slice shrank, became less firm and more flexible. Bonus observation-also notice that the cucumber slice didn't lose its shape entirely and this is because of the rigid plant cell walls that allowed the cucumber to retain its shape.

Answer 2

Osmosis. Basically the water is higher in concentration in the the distilled water so it forces its way inside. The opposite happens when there is salt in the water. The proper way to state that, not that I wasn't essentially correct, and a better explanation is given in the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis

Answer 3

look up 'osmosis' and 'turgor pressure'; those should get you started. It all has to do with concentration gradients (as in what happens when the solute concentration is higher on the outside or the inside..)

Answer 4

the salt removes moisture from the cucumber?