Lives in New York CityAuthor has 1.8K answers and 5.2M answer views Updated 9mo Related
Why does water freeze in below freezing temperatures, but not the blood in our bodies? That’s the point of being warm-blooded. It’s why warm-blooded animals, such as mammals, have a survival advantage. We create our own heat through metabolism so that we’re not at the mercy of the weather. If a cold-blooded animal is in 28°F weather, its body will eventually be 28°F, where it'll freeze to death (since blood and other vital fluid can't move while frozen). On the other hand, we humans will attempt to maintain a healthy body temperature by generating our own heat. In fact, that’s what a calorie in foods actually measures: the amount of energy or heat it can produce when metabolized (if you’ve studied Spanish, you’d know that “calor” means heat). That, along with the ability to release heat when it’s too hot (i.e. through blood flow and perspiration), is why humans can live in so many different climates. Compare that with fishes. A betta, for example, needs to be kept between 78F and 80F, and temperatures below 74F can kill it. As for human blood, it also freezes at “below freezing temperatures” when outside the body. Because of the salt and other chemicals, the freezing point is a little lower, around 28F. Although my lab uses an $8000 ultrafreezer (set to -50F) to quickly freeze blood, I’ve also used an ordinary food freezer, and the blood froze just fine. ========================= https://www.quora.com/At-what-temperature-does-blood-freeze-both-in-the-body-and-in-the-vial -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/massfire/CAFXWwKYaKDUf3hSoqPEv-YKzjK%2BMqcZ%3D7UuaH2Qz5-eB1TgdoQ%40mail.gmail.com.
