Blood+is+blue

=Look at your wrists, what color is blood when it is inside your body? If you said, "blue" than you are not alone in your thinking. It looks blue in your wrist, even in your feet and legs. So why wouldn't you think it is blue in your body? Well, this is a very common misconception about the color of blood when it is inside your body.=

Before you read any further, can you describe what the role of the circulatory system of the human body is? [|Read here to find out!]

It's main function is to deliver oxygenated blood to every cell in the body, and to carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart to get more oxygen from the lungs. =This interactive game will help you discover more about the blood in your body= [|Interactive Blood Game] ="Blood is blue, but turns red with it comes into contact with Oxygen"=

When human blood is exposed to Oxygen, it does in fact turn a brighter red! However, blood without oxygen is not blue. It is always red, but will vary in shades depending on the oxygen concentration. Blood in the human body is carried through blood vessels called arteries and veins. Arteries carry blood containing oxygen from the lungs away from your heart to cells in your body that require oxygen. The oxygen in the blood makes it a nice bright red! Once the blood containing oxygen reaches these cells, there is little to no oxygen left in the blood andit now moves through the veins back to the heart to get more oxygen. This oxygen lacking blood changes hue but not color. It is still red, but a darker shade of red.

media type="custom" key="10087217" Proof of this can be seen at the doctors during blood work or during a blood transfusion.

As you can see below, oxygenated blood on the right is a very bright red, deoxygenated blood on the left is much darker.

The drop on the left has oxygen and on the right is deoxygenated

="So I understand that the oxygen only changes the shade of blood from bright red to dark red, but that still doesn't explain why it looks blue in my veins".=

Here are two questions to stimulate your curiosity. When you have information please add it below.
I wonder... What causes veins to look blue? (look up Rayleigh scattering) I wonder....do any organisms exist that have blue blood?

CT standard: 5.2—Perceiving and responding to information about the environment is critical to the survival of organisms.