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•
4 Jan 2026
•
Understanding Tissues, Organs, and Plant Processes
T
Tara Vidal
@taravidal_jrny
1 / 5
Blood Vessels and Circulation
Ever wondered why your heart beats so hard during exercise? Your circulatory system needs serious pressure to push blood around your entire body efficiently.
There are three main types of blood vessels: arteries (carry blood away from heart), veins (return blood to heart), and capillaries (tiny vessels for exchange). Arteries have thick, muscular walls and elastic fibres because they handle high-pressure, oxygenated blood straight from your heart.
Capillaries are where the magic happens - they're perfectly designed for exchanging oxygen, food and waste with your body cells. They have ultra-thin walls, exist in huge numbers near tissues, and are so narrow that red blood cells barely squeeze through, giving maximum time for exchange.
Veins are quite different - they have thinner walls (lower pressure), wider spaces inside, and crucially, valves to prevent backflow. Without these valves, blood would pool in your legs!
Quick Fact: Your heart is a muscular pump with four chambers - right atrium, right ventricle, left atrium, and left ventricle - each playing a vital role in circulation.
Heart Function and Blood Flow
Your heart works like a perfectly coordinated double-pump system, and understanding this helps explain why heart problems can be so serious.
Blood flow follows a specific route: oxygen-poor blood enters the right atrium via the vena cava, flows to the right ventricle, then gets pumped to lungs through the pulmonary artery. Oxygen-rich blood returns via the pulmonary vein to the left atrium, flows to the left ventricle, then gets pumped around your body through the aorta.
Your heart has its own pacemaker - a group of cells controlling the beating rhythm. Red blood cells are brilliantly adapted with their biconcave shape (large surface area), haemoglobin for carrying oxygen, no nucleus (more space), and small size for travelling through capillaries.
When coronary heart disease strikes, doctors use statins or stents (mechanical devices) as treatments. Statins are cheap but require daily commitment, whilst stents work immediately but may need replacing and require blood-thinning medication.
Remember: Mechanical devices can help when donor organs aren't available, but transplants, though they don't wear out, require lifelong immunosuppressants and long waiting lists.
Breathing System and Plant Structure
Your lungs and plant leaves are both gas exchange champions, but they've evolved completely different strategies to get the job done.
The trachea has rings of cartilage preventing collapse during inhalation. Alveoli in your lungs are perfectly adapted with thin walls, excellent blood supply, and massive surface area for efficient oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange.
Plant leaves are engineering marvels too. The upper epidermis is transparent (letting light through) with a waxy cuticle reducing water loss. Stomata control gas exchange - letting CO2 in and oxygen out whilst managing water vapour loss.
Inside leaves, palisade mesophyll packed with chloroplasts does most photosynthesis, whilst spongy mesophyll has air spaces allowing gases to reach all cells. Xylem tissue transports water and mineral salts from roots to leaves, including magnesium for making chlorophyll.
Key Point: Phloem tissue moves dissolved sugars from leaves to the rest of the plant through a process called translocation - basically the plant's food delivery system.
Plant Transport Systems
Plants don't have hearts, but they've got something equally impressive - a water transport system that works against gravity using nothing but evaporation.
Transpiration is water evaporating from spongy mesophyll surfaces and leaving through stomata. This creates the transpiration stream - as water evaporates from leaves, more gets drawn up from the xylem vessels, which pulls more water up from the roots in a continuous flow.
This works because water is cohesive - molecules stick together, creating an unbroken chain from roots to leaves. It's like having a incredibly long, thin straw that never breaks.
The transpiration stream serves four crucial purposes: transporting mineral ions, providing water for photosynthesis, keeping cells turgid (firm and strong), and cooling leaves through evaporation. Meristem tissue at growing tips acts like plant stem cells, differentiating into various cell types for growth.
Cool Connection: Just like your circulatory system, plants have a transport network moving essential materials where they're needed most efficiently.
Environmental Adaptations
Plants living in harsh environments have developed some seriously clever survival tricks that put human engineering to shame.
Four main factors affect transpiration rates: humidity, light intensity, temperature, and wind speed. Higher values of light, temperature, and wind increase transpiration, whilst higher humidity decreases it.
Plants in hot, dry environments have evolved brilliant adaptations to survive. They might have fewer stomata or nocturnal stomata (opening at night when it's cooler), preventing excessive water loss during scorching daytime heat.
Other adaptations include extra-thick waxy cuticles for waterproofing and spines instead of leaves to minimise surface area for water loss. These adaptations show how plants balance their need for photosynthesis with survival in challenging conditions.
Think About It: Desert plants like cacti have perfected water conservation - they've essentially turned themselves into living water tanks with minimal water loss systems.
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The app is very easy to use and well designed. I have found everything I was looking for so far and have been able to learn a lot from the presentations! I will definitely use the app for a class assignment! And of course it also helps a lot as an inspiration.
Stefan S
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This app is really great. There are so many study notes and help [...]. My problem subject is French, for example, and the app has so many options for help. Thanks to this app, I have improved my French. I would recommend it to anyone.
Samantha Klich
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Wow, I am really amazed. I just tried the app because I've seen it advertised many times and was absolutely stunned. This app is THE HELP you want for school and above all, it offers so many things, such as workouts and fact sheets, which have been VERY helpful to me personally.
Anna
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Best app on earth! no words because it’s too good
Thomas R
iOS user
Just amazing. Let's me revise 10x better, this app is a quick 10/10. I highly recommend it to anyone. I can watch and search for notes. I can save them in the subject folder. I can revise it any time when I come back. If you haven't tried this app, you're really missing out.
Basil
Android user
This app has made me feel so much more confident in my exam prep, not only through boosting my own self confidence through the features that allow you to connect with others and feel less alone, but also through the way the app itself is centred around making you feel better. It is easy to navigate, fun to use, and helpful to anyone struggling in absolutely any way.
David K
iOS user
The app's just great! All I have to do is enter the topic in the search bar and I get the response real fast. I don't have to watch 10 YouTube videos to understand something, so I'm saving my time. Highly recommended!
Sudenaz Ocak
Android user
In school I was really bad at maths but thanks to the app, I am doing better now. I am so grateful that you made the app.
Greenlight Bonnie
Android user
very reliable app to help and grow your ideas of Maths, English and other related topics in your works. please use this app if your struggling in areas, this app is key for that. wish I'd of done a review before. and it's also free so don't worry about that.
Rohan U
Android user
I know a lot of apps use fake accounts to boost their reviews but this app deserves it all. Originally I was getting 4 in my English exams and this time I got a grade 7. I didn’t even know about this app three days until the exam and it has helped A LOT. Please actually trust me and use it as I’m sure you too will see developments.
Xander S
iOS user
THE QUIZES AND FLASHCARDS ARE SO USEFUL AND I LOVE THE SCHOOLGPT. IT ALSO IS LITREALLY LIKE CHATGPT BUT SMARTER!! HELPED ME WITH MY MASCARA PROBLEMS TOO!! AS WELL AS MY REAL SUBJECTS ! DUHHH 😍😁😲🤑💗✨🎀😮
Elisha
iOS user
This apps acc the goat. I find revision so boring but this app makes it so easy to organize it all and then you can ask the freeeee ai to test yourself so good and you can easily upload your own stuff. highly recommend as someone taking mocks now
Paul T
iOS user
The app is very easy to use and well designed. I have found everything I was looking for so far and have been able to learn a lot from the presentations! I will definitely use the app for a class assignment! And of course it also helps a lot as an inspiration.
Stefan S
iOS user
This app is really great. There are so many study notes and help [...]. My problem subject is French, for example, and the app has so many options for help. Thanks to this app, I have improved my French. I would recommend it to anyone.
Samantha Klich
Android user
Wow, I am really amazed. I just tried the app because I've seen it advertised many times and was absolutely stunned. This app is THE HELP you want for school and above all, it offers so many things, such as workouts and fact sheets, which have been VERY helpful to me personally.
Anna
iOS user
Best app on earth! no words because it’s too good
Thomas R
iOS user
Just amazing. Let's me revise 10x better, this app is a quick 10/10. I highly recommend it to anyone. I can watch and search for notes. I can save them in the subject folder. I can revise it any time when I come back. If you haven't tried this app, you're really missing out.
Basil
Android user
This app has made me feel so much more confident in my exam prep, not only through boosting my own self confidence through the features that allow you to connect with others and feel less alone, but also through the way the app itself is centred around making you feel better. It is easy to navigate, fun to use, and helpful to anyone struggling in absolutely any way.
David K
iOS user
The app's just great! All I have to do is enter the topic in the search bar and I get the response real fast. I don't have to watch 10 YouTube videos to understand something, so I'm saving my time. Highly recommended!
Sudenaz Ocak
Android user
In school I was really bad at maths but thanks to the app, I am doing better now. I am so grateful that you made the app.
Greenlight Bonnie
Android user
very reliable app to help and grow your ideas of Maths, English and other related topics in your works. please use this app if your struggling in areas, this app is key for that. wish I'd of done a review before. and it's also free so don't worry about that.
Rohan U
Android user
I know a lot of apps use fake accounts to boost their reviews but this app deserves it all. Originally I was getting 4 in my English exams and this time I got a grade 7. I didn’t even know about this app three days until the exam and it has helped A LOT. Please actually trust me and use it as I’m sure you too will see developments.
Xander S
iOS user
THE QUIZES AND FLASHCARDS ARE SO USEFUL AND I LOVE THE SCHOOLGPT. IT ALSO IS LITREALLY LIKE CHATGPT BUT SMARTER!! HELPED ME WITH MY MASCARA PROBLEMS TOO!! AS WELL AS MY REAL SUBJECTS ! DUHHH 😍😁😲🤑💗✨🎀😮
Elisha
iOS user
This apps acc the goat. I find revision so boring but this app makes it so easy to organize it all and then you can ask the freeeee ai to test yourself so good and you can easily upload your own stuff. highly recommend as someone taking mocks now
Paul T
iOS user
Understanding Tissues, Organs, and Plant Processes
T
Tara Vidal
@taravidal_jrny
Your body is like a massive transport network, moving blood, oxygen and nutrients to every single cell. Plants have their own clever transport systems too, moving water up from roots and sugars around their entire structure.
Blood Vessels and Circulation
Ever wondered why your heart beats so hard during exercise? Your circulatory system needs serious pressure to push blood around your entire body efficiently.
There are three main types of blood vessels: arteries (carry blood away from heart), veins (return blood to heart), and capillaries (tiny vessels for exchange). Arteries have thick, muscular walls and elastic fibres because they handle high-pressure, oxygenated blood straight from your heart.
Capillaries are where the magic happens - they're perfectly designed for exchanging oxygen, food and waste with your body cells. They have ultra-thin walls, exist in huge numbers near tissues, and are so narrow that red blood cells barely squeeze through, giving maximum time for exchange.
Veins are quite different - they have thinner walls (lower pressure), wider spaces inside, and crucially, valves to prevent backflow. Without these valves, blood would pool in your legs!
Quick Fact: Your heart is a muscular pump with four chambers - right atrium, right ventricle, left atrium, and left ventricle - each playing a vital role in circulation.
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Heart Function and Blood Flow
Your heart works like a perfectly coordinated double-pump system, and understanding this helps explain why heart problems can be so serious.
Blood flow follows a specific route: oxygen-poor blood enters the right atrium via the vena cava, flows to the right ventricle, then gets pumped to lungs through the pulmonary artery. Oxygen-rich blood returns via the pulmonary vein to the left atrium, flows to the left ventricle, then gets pumped around your body through the aorta.
Your heart has its own pacemaker - a group of cells controlling the beating rhythm. Red blood cells are brilliantly adapted with their biconcave shape (large surface area), haemoglobin for carrying oxygen, no nucleus (more space), and small size for travelling through capillaries.
When coronary heart disease strikes, doctors use statins or stents (mechanical devices) as treatments. Statins are cheap but require daily commitment, whilst stents work immediately but may need replacing and require blood-thinning medication.
Remember: Mechanical devices can help when donor organs aren't available, but transplants, though they don't wear out, require lifelong immunosuppressants and long waiting lists.
Sign up to see the contentIt's free!
Access to all documents
Improve your grades
Join milions of students
By signing up you accept Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Breathing System and Plant Structure
Your lungs and plant leaves are both gas exchange champions, but they've evolved completely different strategies to get the job done.
The trachea has rings of cartilage preventing collapse during inhalation. Alveoli in your lungs are perfectly adapted with thin walls, excellent blood supply, and massive surface area for efficient oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange.
Plant leaves are engineering marvels too. The upper epidermis is transparent (letting light through) with a waxy cuticle reducing water loss. Stomata control gas exchange - letting CO2 in and oxygen out whilst managing water vapour loss.
Inside leaves, palisade mesophyll packed with chloroplasts does most photosynthesis, whilst spongy mesophyll has air spaces allowing gases to reach all cells. Xylem tissue transports water and mineral salts from roots to leaves, including magnesium for making chlorophyll.
Key Point: Phloem tissue moves dissolved sugars from leaves to the rest of the plant through a process called translocation - basically the plant's food delivery system.
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Improve your grades
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Plant Transport Systems
Plants don't have hearts, but they've got something equally impressive - a water transport system that works against gravity using nothing but evaporation.
Transpiration is water evaporating from spongy mesophyll surfaces and leaving through stomata. This creates the transpiration stream - as water evaporates from leaves, more gets drawn up from the xylem vessels, which pulls more water up from the roots in a continuous flow.
This works because water is cohesive - molecules stick together, creating an unbroken chain from roots to leaves. It's like having a incredibly long, thin straw that never breaks.
The transpiration stream serves four crucial purposes: transporting mineral ions, providing water for photosynthesis, keeping cells turgid (firm and strong), and cooling leaves through evaporation. Meristem tissue at growing tips acts like plant stem cells, differentiating into various cell types for growth.
Cool Connection: Just like your circulatory system, plants have a transport network moving essential materials where they're needed most efficiently.
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Access to all documents
Improve your grades
Join milions of students
By signing up you accept Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Environmental Adaptations
Plants living in harsh environments have developed some seriously clever survival tricks that put human engineering to shame.
Four main factors affect transpiration rates: humidity, light intensity, temperature, and wind speed. Higher values of light, temperature, and wind increase transpiration, whilst higher humidity decreases it.
Plants in hot, dry environments have evolved brilliant adaptations to survive. They might have fewer stomata or nocturnal stomata (opening at night when it's cooler), preventing excessive water loss during scorching daytime heat.
Other adaptations include extra-thick waxy cuticles for waterproofing and spines instead of leaves to minimise surface area for water loss. These adaptations show how plants balance their need for photosynthesis with survival in challenging conditions.
Think About It: Desert plants like cacti have perfected water conservation - they've essentially turned themselves into living water tanks with minimal water loss systems.
We thought you’d never ask...
What is the Knowunity AI companion?
Our AI Companion is a student-focused AI tool that offers more than just answers. Built on millions of Knowunity resources, it provides relevant information, personalised study plans, quizzes, and content directly in the chat, adapting to your individual learning journey.
Where can I download the Knowunity app?
You can download the app from Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Is Knowunity really free of charge?
That's right! Enjoy free access to study content, connect with fellow students, and get instant help – all at your fingertips.
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Most popular content: Heart
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4.9/5
App Store
4.8/5
Google Play
The app is very easy to use and well designed. I have found everything I was looking for so far and have been able to learn a lot from the presentations! I will definitely use the app for a class assignment! And of course it also helps a lot as an inspiration.
Stefan S
iOS user
This app is really great. There are so many study notes and help [...]. My problem subject is French, for example, and the app has so many options for help. Thanks to this app, I have improved my French. I would recommend it to anyone.
Samantha Klich
Android user
Wow, I am really amazed. I just tried the app because I've seen it advertised many times and was absolutely stunned. This app is THE HELP you want for school and above all, it offers so many things, such as workouts and fact sheets, which have been VERY helpful to me personally.
Anna
iOS user
Best app on earth! no words because it’s too good
Thomas R
iOS user
Just amazing. Let's me revise 10x better, this app is a quick 10/10. I highly recommend it to anyone. I can watch and search for notes. I can save them in the subject folder. I can revise it any time when I come back. If you haven't tried this app, you're really missing out.
Basil
Android user
This app has made me feel so much more confident in my exam prep, not only through boosting my own self confidence through the features that allow you to connect with others and feel less alone, but also through the way the app itself is centred around making you feel better. It is easy to navigate, fun to use, and helpful to anyone struggling in absolutely any way.
David K
iOS user
The app's just great! All I have to do is enter the topic in the search bar and I get the response real fast. I don't have to watch 10 YouTube videos to understand something, so I'm saving my time. Highly recommended!
Sudenaz Ocak
Android user
In school I was really bad at maths but thanks to the app, I am doing better now. I am so grateful that you made the app.
Greenlight Bonnie
Android user
very reliable app to help and grow your ideas of Maths, English and other related topics in your works. please use this app if your struggling in areas, this app is key for that. wish I'd of done a review before. and it's also free so don't worry about that.
Rohan U
Android user
I know a lot of apps use fake accounts to boost their reviews but this app deserves it all. Originally I was getting 4 in my English exams and this time I got a grade 7. I didn’t even know about this app three days until the exam and it has helped A LOT. Please actually trust me and use it as I’m sure you too will see developments.
Xander S
iOS user
THE QUIZES AND FLASHCARDS ARE SO USEFUL AND I LOVE THE SCHOOLGPT. IT ALSO IS LITREALLY LIKE CHATGPT BUT SMARTER!! HELPED ME WITH MY MASCARA PROBLEMS TOO!! AS WELL AS MY REAL SUBJECTS ! DUHHH 😍😁😲🤑💗✨🎀😮
Elisha
iOS user
This apps acc the goat. I find revision so boring but this app makes it so easy to organize it all and then you can ask the freeeee ai to test yourself so good and you can easily upload your own stuff. highly recommend as someone taking mocks now
Paul T
iOS user
The app is very easy to use and well designed. I have found everything I was looking for so far and have been able to learn a lot from the presentations! I will definitely use the app for a class assignment! And of course it also helps a lot as an inspiration.
Stefan S
iOS user
This app is really great. There are so many study notes and help [...]. My problem subject is French, for example, and the app has so many options for help. Thanks to this app, I have improved my French. I would recommend it to anyone.
Samantha Klich
Android user
Wow, I am really amazed. I just tried the app because I've seen it advertised many times and was absolutely stunned. This app is THE HELP you want for school and above all, it offers so many things, such as workouts and fact sheets, which have been VERY helpful to me personally.
Anna
iOS user
Best app on earth! no words because it’s too good
Thomas R
iOS user
Just amazing. Let's me revise 10x better, this app is a quick 10/10. I highly recommend it to anyone. I can watch and search for notes. I can save them in the subject folder. I can revise it any time when I come back. If you haven't tried this app, you're really missing out.
Basil
Android user
This app has made me feel so much more confident in my exam prep, not only through boosting my own self confidence through the features that allow you to connect with others and feel less alone, but also through the way the app itself is centred around making you feel better. It is easy to navigate, fun to use, and helpful to anyone struggling in absolutely any way.
David K
iOS user
The app's just great! All I have to do is enter the topic in the search bar and I get the response real fast. I don't have to watch 10 YouTube videos to understand something, so I'm saving my time. Highly recommended!
Sudenaz Ocak
Android user
In school I was really bad at maths but thanks to the app, I am doing better now. I am so grateful that you made the app.
Greenlight Bonnie
Android user
very reliable app to help and grow your ideas of Maths, English and other related topics in your works. please use this app if your struggling in areas, this app is key for that. wish I'd of done a review before. and it's also free so don't worry about that.
Rohan U
Android user
I know a lot of apps use fake accounts to boost their reviews but this app deserves it all. Originally I was getting 4 in my English exams and this time I got a grade 7. I didn’t even know about this app three days until the exam and it has helped A LOT. Please actually trust me and use it as I’m sure you too will see developments.
Xander S
iOS user
THE QUIZES AND FLASHCARDS ARE SO USEFUL AND I LOVE THE SCHOOLGPT. IT ALSO IS LITREALLY LIKE CHATGPT BUT SMARTER!! HELPED ME WITH MY MASCARA PROBLEMS TOO!! AS WELL AS MY REAL SUBJECTS ! DUHHH 😍😁😲🤑💗✨🎀😮
Elisha
iOS user
This apps acc the goat. I find revision so boring but this app makes it so easy to organize it all and then you can ask the freeeee ai to test yourself so good and you can easily upload your own stuff. highly recommend as someone taking mocks now
Paul T
iOS user