TED-Ed: Insights into cell membranes via dish detergent - Ethan Perlstein

The video explores the structure and function of cell membranes, emphasizing their need to be both sturdy and flexible. It traces the history of membrane research, starting with Agnes Pockels' observations in the late 1800s and continuing with Irving Langmuir and Katharine Blodgett's work in the 1920s. The video highlights the pivotal experiment by Evert Gorter and Francois Grendel, which demonstrated that cell membranes are bilayers. This experiment, involving the extraction of lipids from red blood cells, provided crucial insights into cellular architecture long before the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure.

Explain the analogy of the sandwich used to describe the Gorter and Grendel experiment.

What conclusion did Gorter and Grendel reach regarding the composition of cell membranes?