Your blood is red, so why are your veins blue?04:33

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Published on June 6, 2017

What happens in our body that make our veins look blue, although they are full of red blood? Following is a transcript of the video.

If our blood is red, then why do our veins look blue?

Don’t be fooled, your blood is always red…
…whether it’s pulsing in your veins or gushing from a wound.

Skin scatters more blue light than red.
The effect is amplified even more by an optical illusion.
Skin around the vein looks more red than the vein itself.
So, the color contrast enhances the veins’ bluish hue.
Human blood is always red because of the iron in it.
The iron mixes with oxygen in your lungs, turning blood red.
But, the blood of other animals is different.
Because not all blood has the same chemical makeup.
Crustacean and spider blood has more copper than iron.
When the copper mixes with oxygen it turns blood blue.

By contrast, leech blood contains iron…
…but it’s less concentrated than human blood, so it looks green.

Turns out, blood is more colorful than you might think!

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