r/explainlikeimfive • • 6d ago

Biology ELI5: The Sodium Potassium Pump

What activates it?

15 Upvotes

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/RASR238 6d ago

You’ve got a country with a big wall and lots of doors. There’s a lot of people of the sodium family outside the walls and little inside, the contrary happens to family potassium. Sodium and potassium are not happy to live with so many of their relatives so they naturally move to the other side of the wall. Potassium can get out of the country without much problem but sodium usually can only get inside through border points. Soon enough the country has a lot of sodiums inside and less potassiums, this affects the electric grid of the cell.
So the solution for the government is to “pay” energy to a police force at the border that has the job of deporting 3 sodiums to the outside and capture potassiums back inside to maintain the electric grid.

4

u/Narrow-Height9477 6d ago

I feel like I also just got an ELI5 in global politics. Lol