nephron
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The kidney (left) contains more than a million filtering units, or nephrons (right), consisting of the glomerulus, Bowman's capsule, and the loop of Henle. Blood flows through the glomerulus – a tight knot of fine blood vessels from which water and metabolic wastes filter into the tubule. This filtrate flows through the convoluted tubule and loop of Henle where most of the water and useful molecules are reabsorbed into the blood capillaries. The waste materials are passed to the collecting tubule as urine.
Microscopic unit in vertebrate kidneys that forms urine. A human kidney is composed of over a million nephrons. Each nephron consists of a knot of blood capillaries called a glomerulus, contained in the Bowman's capsule, and a long narrow tubule enmeshed with yet more capillaries. Waste materials and water pass from the bloodstream into the tubule, and essential minerals and some water are reabsorbed from the tubule back into the bloodstream. The remaining filtrate (urine) is passed out from the body.
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