Blood is not all that different to rust.
From the book E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis, Page 244:
"[Laurent] Lavoisier...became the founder of modern biology, by opening up the basics of physiology. Human blood, for example, is mostly water, and if you ever try to mix oxygen into water, not a great deal will stay there. But if you scatter some finely ground-up iron filings into the water, then oxygen you pump in will stick to that iron just as it did in his lab. (Each iron fragment quickly starts rusting, and in doing so pulls in a great number of oxygen molecules, making them stick. The result is the iron-rich water can hold onto a lot of oxygen [and supply it where it is needed around the body].) This is how blood works: it's red for the same reason that the iron-rich clay soil of Georgia is red."
This, and other fascinating stuff about science, can be found in this book.
Good Reads entry
Wikipedia entry on author David Bodanis
Originally posted here: http://theadoxistsociety.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html
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