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One thing we can all agree on in these contentious times is that the transfer of water across cell membranes is a good thing, something that is vital to life. The name for this process is osmosis, as all you science nerds already know. Apparently poetry nerds know about it as well. Hollywood not so much, although there is one movie, Osmosis Jones. In this 2001 flick, a policeman white blood cell, Osmosis—or Ozzy--Jones (voiced by Chris Rock) teams up with a time release capsule (voiced by David Hyde-Pierce) to keep a virus from destroying the life of Frank (played by Bill Murray), in whose body they live. It under performed at the box office partly because of the overdone gross-out humor. Interestingly, Will Smith was interested in the part of Ozzy, but had conflicts. So, is that what was really behind that infamous slap?

 

Osmosis is the Greek word for push and is a simple concept, first observed in 1748 by Jean Antoine Nollet, “the father of osmosis.” But the term was first applied to the process in 1826 by Rene Dutrochet. Osmosis is critical to cooking, particularly marinating meats, pickling, curing, and preservation.

 

Students have long fantasized of some day learning by osmosis, passively absorbing knowledge through his or her pillow as they sleep. But, we’re still waiting for science to catch up with that one.

 

Since nothing in life is simple, there is also reverse osmosis. The reverse process involves using pressure to force water from the side of more electrolytes and impurities across a semipermeable membrane to the side with only water, used, for instance, in desalination or water purification.

 

Then, of course, there is ozzmosis, the Ozzy Osbourne tribute show that has tour stops this month in Erie, PA (April 4) and Wheeling, WV (April 5). Which I mention because April 17 is International Bat Appreciation Day, and it was Ozzy Osbourne, the rock singer on his solo Diary of a Madman tour, who inadvertently...or accidentally...or regrettably, bit the head off a live bat in Des Moines, Iowa at the Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium in 1982.

 

So, both osmosis and bats are worthy of our admiration this month. Both have had their praises sung. But only one eats half its weight in mosquitoes every night.