Just curious as to why fish and other sea creatures that live in salt water are not overly salty when ingested? I would think they would absorb most of the salt they live and breathe in.
Edit: added the word overly
In: Biology
All animals on Earth need salt to live. For example, animals with brains like humans use salt to keep their brains healthy and for controlling their body. But animals need the right amount of salt: too much or too little will hurt them.
Fish that live in saltwater are in a funny situation: saltwater has too much salt in it for their brains! So fish bodies have to take the salt out of the water they absorb, and put that salt back out into the ocean. If they absorbed the salt and kept it, their brains would have bad problems.
Countercurrent flow. It’s been a while since I learned it but it’s a similar way to how the Nephrons in the kidney can concentrate solutes.
One of the foundations of life is pumping salt out of cells. We are all walking amalgamations of tiny regulated portable oceans.
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