guest post by julia~
.. a taste of her new found medical knowledge:

umm.... good morning everyone who reads Ian's blog..
Today is the day you'll all hear about hyperosmotic soup... (at least that's what my housemate called it..)
First off, hyperosmotic means pertaining to an increased concentration of osmotically active components. [Mosby's med dictionary]
In this case, the osmotically active components were the flavoursome bits... like chicken, celery, carrot, salt...They are osmotic because they have the ability to move from a place of higher concentration to a place of lower concentration to get to an equilibrium.
So, when we say that the soup is hyperosmotic, we actually mean that it tastes like crap because all the flavours and that haven't mixed into the watery soupy bit...
So now you know what hyperosmosis means..
Similarly, hypoosmotic soup would be soup which has reached it's equilibrium where the flavour is equally spread amongst the total volume of the liquid.