What is osmosis in an animal cell?
Osmosis is the diffusion of water (specifically water) through the cell membrane. It can be active or passive transport. Diffusion (just incase you didnt know) is the movement of gas or liquid down a concentration gradient until a dynamic equilibrium is reached. It is usually passive transport, because it does not need energy to happen, because of the gradient. Active transport is where the molecules require energy to move, because there is no concentration gradient, but the molecules still need to be in one place. One example is water in the blood. It osmosises through the capillary cell membranes into the capillary wall cells, and then osmosizes where ever it needs to go from there. Like into skin cells. If there is a lot of water in the blood then this process should be passive transport, if the person is very dehydrated, and there is not much water in the blood, then this process will probably be active transport.
