Human blood color is not just red

What impact would blood cell pigments that differed from person to person have on society? Blood color would be hereditary like eye color and not random. I am not sure what colors there would be besides red, but perhaps it would correspond to a person's eye color, and that would not be very fun. A caste system might emerge in certain areas, but that can happen with all kinds of traits. What yall think?
 

Keenir

Banned
What impact would blood cell pigments that differed from person to person have on society? Blood color would be hereditary like eye color and not random. I am not sure what colors there would be besides red, but perhaps it would correspond to a person's eye color, and that would not be very fun. A caste system might emerge in certain areas, but that can happen with all kinds of traits. What yall think?

blood is only red when it is exposed to free O2.

a caste system already formed in OTL - ever hear of "blue-bloods"?


ps: though your idea would give new meaning to the old "one drop rule".
 
I knew abou the whole blue-blooded thing but in this scenario someone would have something real to back up a superiority claim like that. Who knows, blue blood might be the blood of the serfs or something.

If you wanted to get technical I suppose you could say "color of oxygen exposed blood".
 
An interesting idea. It would probably lead to similar social structuring that skin color, eye/hair color, etc do.

The other issue is how the blood is pigmented. From your post I assume you are referring to biologically compatablility similar to eye color.

How would things differ if the biological differences led to inablility for reproduction between people of different blood colors - basically leading to divergence of the species.

This brings up the idea of multi-species intelligent hominids co-existing in modern times.
 
hmm well i know that iron makes blood red for vertebrates and copper makes it blue in mollusks and such so hmm you know i cant think ofanything that would make humans blood color vary:confused: besides this probably belongs in ASB doesn't it?
 
you would need a big divergence plus (need a senior members input here) biological POD's are ASB by default.
 

Thande

Donor
Changinc colour means changing the blood's molecular make-up...

That means it is ASB... ;)

No it isn't. There are diseases in OTL that result in people having green or yellow blood.

It's ASB to give oxyhaemoglobin a different colour, but that's not the only determinant in blood colour.
 
No it isn't. There are diseases in OTL that result in people having green or yellow blood.

It's ASB to give oxyhaemoglobin a different colour, but that's not the only determinant in blood colour.
That's what I thought. Like he said, pigmentation should do it. (I'm not pretending to be a biologist, only GCSE level :p)
 

Thande

Donor
This is ASB, as all vertebrates have the same blood color.

This is also untrue. Some lizards have green blood, due to a more endemic and natural version of the same effect I mentioned above in humans (IIRC, it's down to the presence in high concentrations of a bile derivative in the blood).

Check your facts, people. Let's get beyond A-level science here.
 
Its ASB but its interesting.

Would this different blood colour be related to blood types?
Could lead to earlier advances in medical science.
 

Thande

Donor
Its ASB but its interesting.
It's not ASB :rolleyes: Read the damn thread.

Just as heterozygous sickling of blood cells is pretty common among West Africans, I could easily see sulfhaemoglobinaemia becoming endemic among a race if it carried advantages that outweighed its disadvantages (as with sickle cell anaemia in Africa, and cystic fibrosis in Europe). So then you'd have a race with green blood.
 
It's not ASB :rolleyes: Read the damn thread.

Just as heterozygous sickling of blood cells is pretty common among West Africans, I could easily see sulfhaemoglobinaemia becoming endemic among a race if it carried advantages that outweighed its disadvantages (as with sickle cell anaemia in Africa, and cystic fibrosis in Europe). So then you'd have a race with green blood.

Humans having a tail would be within the laws of nature.
It's still ASB though.
 
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