this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Guys, the blood that's coming out of my penis worm is red.
Should I be worried?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Many of the comments being "penis worms!", but no one is asking about that Red blood is only in the "majority of vertebrates" leaves me wondering which vertebrates have what other colour(s) of blood.

Edit: I have been told that it's "Crocodile Icefish" (10 species of) and colourless.

Thanks, @[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is yet another trick to make us look at penis worms :P

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is clearly propaganda by Big Penis.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Or at least by Big Penis Worm

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Well "hey baby wanna look at something purple and full of blood" hasn't worked for me yet

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Whenever I see this image I always wonder 2 things:

  1. What makes hemoglobin more efficient?
  2. Why do we even need these fancy molecules to transport oxygen? Can't we produce some kind of biological ampule that holds some pure O2 for consumption by the various processes that need it? We have dedicated organelle structures for similar tasks (i.e. mitochondria)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago
  1. Penis worms?
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)
  1. It's sensitive to pH, so it absorbs oxygen more readily in the lungs, and releases it slightly more near tissues that need it, as they have co2 which slightly acidifies the blood in solution (h2co3).

  2. It's effective and well tuned for our biology, it doesn't bond strongly, and is well suited for the air-blood interface, unlike others that often favor water-blood or water-the fluid worms use instead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

CO2 and H2CO3 (apparently I don't know how to do subscript on here.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I didn't do the carbonic acid, then there's the increased bicarb buffering around the pleura, couple other facts.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539815/

Upon entrance into red blood cells, carbon dioxide is quickly converted to carbonic acid by the enzyme carbonic anhydrase. Carbonic acid immediately dissociates into bicarbonate and hydrogen ions. As previously stated, an increase in hydrogen ions stabilize the hemoglobin in the T-state and induces oxygen unloading which leads to shifting of the dissociation curve to the right.[6]

Thus the acidity causes o2 release. Temperature (lungs tend to be very cold in the body) is important too.

Oxygen unloading is favored at higher temperatures which will cause a rightward shift. On the other hand, lower temperatures will cause a leftward shift in the dissociation curve. A notable example of this is exercise, where the temperature of muscle increases secondary to its utilization, thus shifting the curve to the right and allowing oxygen to be more easily unloaded from hemoglobin and deliver to tissues in need.

It's amazing how subtly it works to gently increase efficiency where we need it. Otherwise it's just a very weak oxygen bond (which is hard enough given oxygen is extremely non-polar and all you have are the valence pairs. edit: This lead me to wonder how the fuck it even bonded effectively

https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(19)63845-7/fulltext

Wow, I'm impressed, they're using spin-coupling which is a pretty dicey effect.

Thus, we can conclude that the facile binding of O2 to hemo- and myoglobin arises primarily as an effect of the topology of the binding curves for the four relevant spin states. This topology, with nearly degenerat>e and parallel curves, is caused by the near degeneracy (within 10 kJ/mol) of the triplet and quintet states of deoxyheme. Therefore, the design by nature of iron porphines having close-lying spin states of a particular symmetry and energy is a means to tune binding of small ligands and overcome the activation barriers of these spin-forbidden reactions, despite the moderate SOC of first-row transition metals. The resulting barrier height makes up most of the rate enhancement due to the exponential dependence on the rate, whereas one or two orders of magnitude may come from the increase in the transmission coefficient.

That's some fucking crazy ass engineering by nature, A weak, highly reversible bond with the molecule keyed to both pH and thermal triggers. That was a fun rabbit hole.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks so much for the deep dive. I love learning from such concise facts.

To add, also @[email protected] : There is only one known species of vertebrates without hemoglobin. The Crocodile Icefish, it once had it in its blood and lost some genes to synthesize it. The debate about why is still ongoing, with the currently favored theory that they adapted to a high oxygen and low iron environment.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Thanks for the callout and link! 🙏🏽

Nature is fascinating.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Thank you. Clear, easily understood explanations of questions I always wondered. 👍🏼

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Red, the blood of angry men

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Black, the dark of ages past.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago

Chlorocruorin is really confusingly named. I was trying and failing to find the chlorine in it and was wondering if I was just dumb or blind or what.

khloros is Greek for "green". That's also where chlorine gets its name. So they're only related etymologically.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago
  • obligatory Homestuck mention *
[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Interesting tidbit: from left to right, these are ordered by the efficiency of the oxygen transportation, highest to lowest.

Blue blood may be cool, but red blood is better for you.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Blue blood may be cool, but red blood is better for you.

=> Nobility is fashionable, but it's healthier to be a peasant.

Also, from this table I learn that Europeans of ages past were ruled by octopodes.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I guess I could google it but for the sake of the comment section is that from highest to lowest or the other way around?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Highest to lowest. I edited it into the comment.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I remember one of my sister's teachers were saying that human blood is blue when inside your body. "Just look at your veins!"

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago

Yeah one of the great lies we were all taught.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Rich "blue blooded" failsons are spiders! Called it! porky-spider

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Amazing that Vulcans aren’t mentioned on this list. And on a more serious note: humanoids with green blood are apparently not that impossible!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Whoever named the penis worm hit the nail on the head.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I see what you did there

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Haha they’re called like that because of their shape right? Right?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I knew about the hemocyanin because I was trying to figure out if one of the characters in my tentacle porn should have blue blood but decided against it. Cool to learn about the others too though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nah. Weirdly enough it was the character with the arthropod features I was investigating the concept for but now I wonder if I should've done that for the illithid so I might look into that. It was relevant to the other character because the actual arthropod features (wings) are missing by the time of the story so it was going to be one of the "hints" that they had her labeled as the wrong species but first of all it just didn't fit creatively, it was much too overt to the extent it didn't even make logical sense for the mixup to happen but also as you see here the science doesn't follow either it's only spiders and the like that have it, not dragonflies.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago

Knew about Haemoglobin and Haemocyanin, but never heard of the other two before. Very interesting.

Also, RIP Penis worms. Got a terrible name and have low efficiency oxygen transport.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

interesting to know there's purple blood, though! I didn't know that

[–] [email protected] 140 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Oh neat, now I know Penis Worms have purple blood. And that Penis Worms exist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Ahahaha benis :DDD

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s the existence I really have a problem with.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

came for the outrage, then came for the outrage

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 week ago (3 children)

My exact thoughts. Penis worm? Time to look up how to actively avoid getting any penis worms.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Don't dip your oar in Lake Katchakootie

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

They're easy to spot if you have them.

They'll appear as thin squiggly lines running underneath your skin, usually a different pigment than your natural skin tone.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Chill, they're called that because they kinda look like penises, they're not penis parasites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapulida?wprov=sfla1

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're right. It's the Sounding Worm that is the penis parasite, not Penis Worm. Sounding Worms are aptly named because they get inside the urethra and live there, and can even cause orgasm when excited.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Must not look this up.. Must not look this up. Must not...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

If that's how their dicks looked like, they need to see a doctor.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago

Well now I'm concerned about the picture of my penis in the wiki article..