Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Gas exchange is the physical process by which gases move passively by diffusion across a surface. For example, this surface might be the air/water interface of a water body, the surface of a gas bubble in a liquid, a gas-permeable membrane, or a biological membrane that forms the boundary between an organism and its extracellular environment.
The respiratory zone includes the respiratory bronchioles, alveolar ducts, and alveoli, and is the site of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange with the blood. The respiratory bronchioles and the alveolar ducts are responsible for 10% of the gas exchange. The alveoli are responsible for the other 90%.
Gas exchange takes place in the gills which consist of thin or very flat filaments and lammellae which expose a very large surface area of highly vascularized tissue to the water. Other animals, such as insects , have respiratory systems with very simple anatomical features, and in amphibians , even the skin plays a vital role in gas exchange.
A pulmonary alveolus (pl. alveoli; from Latin alveolus 'little cavity'), also called an air sac or air space, is one of millions of hollow, distensible cup-shaped cavities in the lungs where pulmonary gas exchange takes place. [1] Oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide at the blood–air barrier between the alveolar air and the pulmonary ...
In contrast, exhalation (breathing out) is usually a passive process, though there are many exceptions: when generating functional overpressure (speaking, singing, humming, laughing, blowing, snorting, sneezing, coughing, powerlifting); when exhaling underwater (swimming, diving); at high levels of physiological exertion (running, climbing ...
Real-time magnetic resonance imaging of the human thorax during breathing X-ray video of a female American alligator while breathing. Breathing (spiration [1] or ventilation) is the rhythmical process of moving air into and out of the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the internal environment, mostly to flush out carbon dioxide and bring in oxygen.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Terminal bronchioles mark the end of the conducting division of air flow in the respiratory system while respiratory bronchioles are the beginning of the respiratory division where gas exchange takes place. The diameter of the bronchioles plays an important role in air flow. The bronchioles change diameter to either increase or reduce air flow.