Blood is Blue?!?!

Last Friday, me and my officemates had our company-provided Annual Physical Examination. I asked Law, just as he finished his blood exam: "is it true that the color of our blood is blue?" He was like "what??!!?? are you serious? it's red." Still tormented by confusing thoughts, I answered him with a bashful question "huhhhhh?"

I remember my college instructor telling the whole class that it's blue; and that it becomes red when it comes into contact with oxygen. Thus, explains the color of our veins.

After some flashbacks, Law responded and told me that he's gonna ask the nurse who took our blood samples. Afraid that they might make a laugh trip out of it, I stuck a magazine into his mouth and told him that I'll just research about it on the net :D.

It seems that I wasn't the only one confused, it's actually a popular misconception. I saw several forums discussing the same topic. Here are a couple of good explanations from Answers.com and from Science Education Partnenrships .

Our blood's color is never blue, though it can range from bright red to deep red. It is bright red when it's oxygenated and deep red when it's not. So it definitely doesn't make our veins blue, the latter are bluish by themselves. Well at least the 'oxygen' part coincided with my professor's statement.

Eh ano naman ung berde ang dugo? ako ba un... ;)