Haemoglobin Quotes & Sayings

The blood pigment haemoglobin is a compound which can be split by diverse methods into its constituents, pigment and protein. — Hans Fischer

Pigments such as haemoglobin are coloured because they absorb light of particular colours (bands of light, as in a rainbow) and reflect back light of other colours. The pattern of light absorbed by a compound is known as its absorption spectrum. When binding oxygen, haemoglobin absorbs light in the blue-green and yellow parts of the spectrum, but reflects back red light, and this is the reason why we perceive arterial blood as a vivid red colour. The absorption spectrum changes when oxygen dissociates from haemoglobin in venous blood. Deoxyhaemoglobin absorbs light across the green part of the spectrum, and reflects back red and blue light. This gives venous blood its purple colour. — Nick Lane

Were it not for the melanin in our skin, myoglobin in our muscles and haemoglobin in our blood, we would be the colour of mitochondria. And, if this were so, we would change colour when we exercised or ran out of breath, so that you could tell how energized someone was from his or her colour. — Guy Brown

If one compares the sequence of amino acids that go to form the protein haemoglobin, it becomes apparent that humans and chimps are identical and do not differ in a single site ... — Simon Conway Morris

Haemoglobin is a very large molecule by ordinary standards, containing about ten thousand atoms, but the chances are that your haemoglobin and mine are identical, and significantly different from that of a pig or horse. You may be impressed by how much human beings differ from one another, but if you were to look into the fine details of the molecules of which they are constructed, you would be astonished by their similarity. — Francis Crick

In the course of my stay there, I also showed how one could analyse the experimental kinetic curves for the reaction of haemoglobin with carbon dioxide or oxygen by simulations in the computer, and so fit the rate constants. — Aaron Klug