Biology Flashcards
What’s the heart?
A muscular organ which pumps blood sound the body, it’s actually 2 pumps held together.
How does the heart work?
The right pump forces deoxygenated blood to the lungs where it picks up oxygen and loses carbon dioxide.
After returning to the heart, the oxygenated blood is then pumped to the rest of the body by the left pump.
The heart has four chambers.
The upper ones, called atria, receive blood from the vena cava on the right and the pulmonary vein on the left.
The atria contract to move blood into their lower chambers - the ventricles.
When the ventricles contract, they force blood into the pulmonary artery from the right side and into the aorta on the left side.
Valves in the heart prevent the blood from flowing in the wrong direction. The heart muscle is supplied with oxygenated blood via the coronary arteries.
The action of the 2 sides of the heart result in a double circulation.
What are the 3 types of blood vessel?
Arteries
Veins
Capillaries
What are properties of arteries?
They carry blood away from the heart
They have thick walls containing muscle and elastic tissue
What are properties of veins?
They have thinner walls than arteries
They often have valves along their length to prevent the back flow of blood
What are properties of capillaries?
They’re narrow, thin-walled vessels
They carry the blood through the organs and allow the exchange of substances with all the living cells in the body.
What happens if blood vessels are blocked or too narrow?
Blood can’t flow through effectively so the organs will be deprived of nutrients and oxygen.
Equipment e.g. Stents have to be used.
What’s a stent?
A method to widen and keep blood vessels open.
They are inserted into blood vessels and a balloon is then inflated to open the stent before being removed and leaving the stent in place.
This is beneficial when coronary arteries become narrowed due to fatty deposits and are cutting off blood supply to the heart muscle.
What’s the issue with a leaky valve?
Leaky valves mean the blood could flow in the wrong direction.
Artificial or animal valves can be inserted in the heart to replace damaged valves.
What’s blood?
Blood’s a tissue.
The fluid plasma contains red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.
What does blood plasma transport?
Many substances including:
CO2 from the organs to the lungs
Soluble products of digestion from the small intestine to other organs
Urea from the liver to the kidneys where ur one is made
Properties and functions of red blood cells:
Are biconcave discs which don’t have a nucleus
Contain the red pigment haemoglobin
Use their haemoglobin which combines with oxygen to form oxyhemoglobin in the lungs
Carry the oxygen to all the organs where the oxyhemoglobin splits into haemoglobin and oxygen
Properties and functions of white blood cells:
Have a nucleus
Form part if the body’s defence system against microorganisms
What are the properties and functions of platelets:
They’re small fragments of cells
Don’t have a nucleus
Help blood to clot at the site of a wound.
Why is plasma given to patients?
The plasma can be given to patients in a transfusion to increase blood volume.
Blood from donors can be separated into plasma and cells. Donated blood mist be refrigerated. Some blood products can be frozen.
What’s artificial blood?
Artificial blood e.g. Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) can be used which doesn’t have to be refrigerated. It doesn’t contain cells so blood matching is not necessary.
Artificial blood is expensive and doesn’t carry as much oxygen as whole blood. Some types are insoluble in water therefore they don’t mix well with blood.
Some also cause unpleasant side-effects.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of artificial hearts?
Adv:
They don’t need to match the persons tissue
There’s no need for immunosuppressant drugs.
Dis:
Problems with blood clotting
Long stays at the hospital
It’s expensive
What are the transport tissues within plants?
Xylem tissue - transports water and mineral ions from the roots to the stem, leaves and flowers.
Phloem tissue - carries dissolved sugars from the leaves to the rest of the plant, including the growing regions and the storage organs.
What’s the transpiration stream?
The movement of water from the roots through the xylem and out of the leaves.
What’s the circulatory system?
The double circulation system in humans which consists of blood, blood vessels and the heart.
What’s osmosis?
The movement of water - it is the diffusion of water across a partially permeable membrane e.g. In and out of cells via the cell membrane.
The water moves from a region of high water concentration (dilute solution) to an area of low water concentration (more concentrated solution).
Just like diffusion, movement of water molecules requires no energy from the cell.
What does active transport allow?
It allows cells to take in substances against a concentration gradient. (It uses energy from respiration).
Cells may need to absorb substances which are in short supply i.e. Against the c’ gradient.
They use active transport to absorb substances across partially permeable membranes against the c’ gradient.
What can be absorbed from active transport?
Cells are able to absorb ions from dilute solutions e.g. Root cells absorb mineral ions from the dilute solutions in the soil by active transport.
Glucose can be re-absorbed in the kidney tubules by active transport.
What happens during active transport?
- the transport protein absorbs the useful molecule from outside the cell.
- the transport protein rotates to release the molecule inside the cell using energy.
- the transport protein then rotates again so it’s facing the outside if the cell.
What do most sports drinks contain and why?
They’re solutions of sugar and mineral ions.
- water helps replace the water lost when sweating
- sugar helps replace sugar and glucose used for respiration and energy release
- mineral ions help replace those lost in sweating
What are sports drinks used for?
They’re designed to help balance the the concentration of body fluids and the concentrations inside cells.
If the drink concentration matches the body fluids the solution is called isotonic.
What are exchange surfaces?
Large, complex organisms have special exchange surfaces to obtain all the food and oxygen they need.
Soluble food materials (solutes) are absorbed by the intestine. Oxygen is absorbed by the lungs and CO2 is removed from them.
What makes efficient exchanging surfaces?
A large surface area, thin walls or a short diffusion path.
How are the lungs efficient exchanging materials?
Lungs contain gaseous exchange surfaces.
- Surface area is increased by the alveoli (air sacs)
- Alveoli have thin walls, a large surface area and good air supply
- The lungs are ventilated to keep. Steep diffusion gradient
- Oxygen can easily diffuse into the many capillaries surrounding the alveoli and CO2 can diffuse out
Air goes in
Oxygen moves into the blood via diffusion
CO2 passes out of the blood by diffusion
Air out
Where are the lungs situated?
In the thorax, inside the rib age above the diaphragm separating the lungs from the abdomen
What happens when we breathe in?
- the intercostal muscles between the ribs and diaphragm contract
- the rib age moves up and out and the diaphragm flattens
- the volume of the thorax is increased
- pressure in the thorax decreases and air is drawn in
What happens when we breathe out?
- the intercostal muscles between the ribs and diaphragm relax
- the rib age moves down and in and the diaphragm becomes domed
- the volume of the thorax is decreased
- pressure in the thorax increases and air is forced out
What’s ventilation?
Movement of air in and out of the lungs
Why would you not be able to get enough oxygen into the blood stream?
Damaged alveoli - smaller surface area for gas exchange
Narrow tubes leading to the lungs - less air can move through
Paralysis - their muscles won’t work to pull their rib age up and out
Hat are the various breathing aids?
Iron lung - for paralysed people (chest sealed in large metal cylinder, when air was drawn out the cylinder the persons chest moved out and they breathed in and vise versa) (negative pressure)
Breathing aids force measured amounts of air into the lungs using positive pressure. Bags of air linked to masks can force air down the trachea.
Positive pressure aids are often smaller and easier to manage at home and can be linked to computers for control