Blood Veins facts

While investigating facts about Blood Veins, I found out little known, but curios details like:

After a decompression accident killed four people in 1983, doctors discovered that decompression does not kill from pressure, but that fat in the bloodstream suddenly condenses in veins and immediately stops all blood flow.

Lady Dai, death in 163 BC, considered the best preserved mummy in the world. Upon discovery she still had moist, soft skin, movable limbs, intact organs and veins with still small amounts of type A blood in them, distinct finger prints and more!

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 40 of the best facts about Blood Veins I managed to collect.

1. There is an "official" unicode anger symbol. It's which represents veins on your forehead when your blood pressure rises.

2. If all arteries, veins, and capillaries of the a person's circulatory system were laid end to end, not only would that person be dead, but their blood vessels could stretch around the Earth nearly two and a half times (60,000 miles/100,000 km).

3. Nietzsche criticised antisemitism and German nationalism, believing in his final years he was "a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German". He claimed he and Germany were great thanks to "Polish blood in their veins" and wanted "all antisemites shot"

4. The red , blue and white rotating sign outside US Barber shops actually symbolizes Blood, Veins and Bandages dating back to when barbers used to do surgical tasks as well.

5. A man's scrotum and testicles have a liquid cooling system. Since arterial blood comes out of the body too hot and would kill sperm, we have a series of veins that run parallel to the arteries that act as a thermal exchange system.

6. Tuna has unique network of small arteries and veins near the muscles called "rete mirabile" which facilitates warming of the blood. Warmed blood is essential for fast and strong swimming.

7. Physicians all over Europe were soon measuring patients" blood pressure by sticking point-ended glass tubes directly into their veins.

8. Barber Poles are are a legacy of the barber-surgeons' practice of bloodletting. The red represented the blood, the white the bandages, and the blue the protruding veins. This double job was legal until 1745.

9. A doctor successfully foiled being convicted of rape by surgically inserting a "fake vein" filled with another man's blood into his own arm to foil DNA testing.

10. The idiom "blue blood", used to describe those of noble birth, derives from their superficial veins appearing blue on untanned skin. Tanned skin was associated with the working class and peasantry who spent most of their time outdoors.

What is true about blood veins?

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In 1667 a doctor successfully performed a Xenotransfusion (a blood transfusion between blood from one species into the veins of another) The transfusion occurred between a lamb and a 15-year-old boy.

Che Guevera was of Irish descent. His father once declared "the first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels". - source

Venous hum" is a benign phenomenon where the flow of blood can cause the vein walls to vibrate creating a humming noise which can be heard by the subject. - source

Veins have valves to stop blood from flowing backwards.

Birds' feet never freeze thanks to what's called rete mirabile, a fine, netlike pattern of arteries and veins that makes so what little blood goes down to their feet is already cold and the birds don't lose too much heat. - source

Birds have what are called "blood feathers" or "pin feathers", which themselves have an artery and a vein, and if one of those feathers is damaged while still growing then a bird can bleed to death.

Birds survive extremely cold weather, in part, by an artery and vein arrangement that returns warmed blood in the veins to the body before it reaches the feet. Cold feet lose very little heat to the cold ground.

There are lots of blood vessels attached to your heart. Blood vessels that carry blood to your heart are called veins; vessels that carry blood away from your heart are called arteries. There are a couple of really big veins and arteries in your body - the vena cava (superior and inferior, or above and below) is the vein that collects blood from all other veins and brings it to the heart; the aorta is the big artery that carries the blood from your heart to all the other arteries in your body.

Swallowed fish bones can puncture through the digestive system, requiring surgery to remove. In rare cases, they can also puncture surrounding organs and blood vessels, including the carotid artery and jugular vein.

FBI used Vein matching (a technique of identification through blood vessels visible from the surface of the skin) to bolster their case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Daniel Pearl's murder case. His vein pattern matched that of the perpetrator's who is seen in the beheading video.

Blood deprived oxygen is not blue. Veins look blue because light has to penetrate the skin to illuminate them, blue and red light (being of different wavelengths) penetrate with different degrees of success