EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Venous blood is often depicted as blue in color in medical diagrams, and veins sometimes look blue when seen through the skin. However, venous blood is actually a dark red color (but looks purple through the opaque skin), while arterial blood is bright red.

Detailed explanation-2: -The colors of arterial and venous blood are different. Oxygenated (arterial) blood is bright red, while dexoygenated (venous) blood is dark reddish-purple.

Detailed explanation-3: -Blood is always red. Blood that has been oxygenated (mostly flowing through the arteries) is bright red and blood that has lost its oxygen (mostly flowing through the veins) is dark red. Anyone who has donated blood or had their blood drawn by a nurse can attest that deoxygenated blood is dark red and not blue.

Detailed explanation-4: -It owes its color to hemoglobin, to which oxygen binds. Deoxygenated blood is darker due to the difference in shape of the red blood cell when oxygen binds to haemoglobin in the blood cell (oxygenated) versus does not bind to it (deoxygenated).

Detailed explanation-5: -Venous blood is deoxygenated blood that flows from tiny capillary blood vessels within the tissues into progressively larger veins to the right side of the heart. Venous blood is the specimen of choice for most routine laboratory tests.