what color is blood before it hits oxygen?

Answer 1

The color of blood before it is re-oxygenated in the lungs is blue. You can see the blueness in veins that are close to the surface of the skin. Blood goes from the heart through the arteries to the rest of the body and returns by way of the veins. Veins look blue.

Answer 2

No, that's total nonsense. Blood is red because of the red blood cells. They have millions of hemoglobin molecules and each contains an Iron atom. Iron is red by nature, therefore giving blood the red color. So regardless of whether it binds to oxygen or not it'll always be red. However blood with no oxygen is a bit darker in color.

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
what color is blood before it hits oxygen?

Answer 4

Red. The color of blood comes from these wild things called red blood cells (RBCs) which contain hemoglobin. The iron in hemoglobin gives blood its red color.

Oxygenated blood is bright red, deoxygenated blood is dark red.

Veins' blue color is due to an optical effect of how light penetrates skin. This is what causes the common misconception that blood is blue prior to hitting oxygen.

Answer 5

Despite what almost eveyone else is saying, blood without oxygen is dark red and oxygenated blood is bright red. Listen to Bill and huckypeep, they're right.

Answer 6

red, always!!!! Despite many ideas to the contrary, whenever I have been cut, or seen another injured, I have never seen them leak blue blood. As already stated, the colour comes from the 'iron' contained in blood cells. The only difference in colour is the shade, as already stated. The myth of 'blue' colour comes from the text books in school to show the pathways of veins- which appear blue and arteries, shown as red!!!!!

Answer 7

Oh my goodness.
When will this fallacy ever die.
Unless you are a squid or octopus (who have hemocyanin, which makes their blood appear blue)
Or unless you are Godzilla, who had green blood.

Blood is RED.
Oxygenated blood is RED
Deoxygenated blood is RED
Blood in your vein is RED
BLood in your artery is RED

think about it.
When you give blood, they draw it into an empty syringe;
The blood goes from your vein, into the syringe, coming in contact with very little air (if any)
What color is that blood in the syringe?

RED!!!


This question has already been answered in yahoo answers,
by CherylYoungwho wrote:
In humans and other hemoglobin-using creatures, oxygenated blood is a bright red in its color. Deoxygenated blood is a darker shade of red, which can be seen during blood donation and when venous blood samples are taken. However, due to an optical effect caused by the way in which light penetrates through the skin, veins typically appear blue in color in light-skinned people. This has led to a common misconception that before venous blood is exposed to air it is blue. The appearance of blood as dark blue is a wavelength phenomenon of light, having to do with the reflection of blue light away from the outside of venous tissue if the vein is @ 0.02in deep or more. This is due to the difference in color between deoxyhemoglobin and oxyhemoglobin; the red color ultimately originates from the iron atom in heme. When red blood cells die, the hemoglobin within them is released and broken up: the iron in hemoglobin is salvaged, transported to the bone marrow by a protein called transferrin and used again in the production of new red blood cells; the remainder of the hemoglobin becomes a chemical called bilirubin that is excreted into the bile which is secreted into the intestine, where it gives the feces their characteristic yellow-brown color.

Veins are closer to the surface of the skin and so you are able to see them if you have light skin. Arteries can sometimes be seen in a light-skinned baby.

"Blue blood" in the sense of "aristocracy" is actually a direct translation of the Spanish phrase "sangre azul." The oldest families of Castile in Spain prided themselves on the "purity" of their lineage, believing it never to have been "contaminated" by Moorish, Jewish or other "foreign blood," and as evidence offered the blueness of their veins against their fair complexions. In truth, their blood was the same color as everyone else's, and it was simply the lightness of their skins that made their veins appear blue, but "sangre azul" was taken into English around 1834 as "blue blood" and has been a synonym for "nobility" or "aristocracy" ever since.


Pay attention people...

Answer 8

Blue

Answer 9

Blood is bright red when oxygenated and dark red when it lacks oxygen.

Answer 10

your blood is blue. when it hits the oxygen it turns red. that's why our veins are blue.

Answer 11

Blood is blue until its oxegenated, and at that point, it turns red.