-
If Spock shits in the woods, is the poop blue green? Creatures having iron based blood is apparently why poop is brown, so would blood based on copper cause it to be blue green?
-
So what color would the blood be when oxygenated, and when returning for oxygenation.
Hemocyanin is the most common copper-based blood pigment on earth.
The Wikipedia article on hemocyanin says colourless with oxygen, blue (or maybe cyan) without, so using hemocyanin as our model blood pigment, he’d have pale skin and translucent oxygenated blood normally, blue green colour in the veins, or in the skin when suffocating.
I haven’t found the colours of the breakdown products of hemocyanin yet, I’m too busy laughing about the question “what colour are Spock’s poops”.
Poop color from hemoglobin-using organisms is due to bilirubin, which is a breakdown product of the heme porphyrin ring. Because of the importance of iron, it is stripped off of heme and recycled. I would expect the same from a hemocyanin-using organism, leaving just the hemocyanin protein behind. Thus, the color of the poop would be light and more reflective of the diet than from the breakdown of hemocyanin. In order to get green poop, he’d need to eat a cake with black frosting, for instance.
I have to note that the phrase “green with envy” would not be appropriate to use in reference to Spock, for more than the obvious reason.
Vlad/Igor
FWIW, oxygen transport is mediated by a very small group of organometallic “pigments” (actually not pigments in the strict sense of compounds whose primary function is to impart color, but characteristically brightly colored and hence “pigments” in the broad sense) Their common characteristic is the ability to bond oxygen temporarily – and be able to lose it “on delivery” to cells in need of oxygen. Hence hemoglobin <-> oxyhemoglobin is a valid biochemical reaction, and the deoxygenated hemoglobin is available to take up more oxygen a the gills or lungs and repeat the cycle.
The hemoglobin <-> oxyhemoglobin reaction is the most efficient mode of oxygen transport that has evolved, and a wide range of animals therefore use it. The hemocyanin <-> oxyhemocyanin reaction is competitive only in certain relatively restricted econiches (in a very few of which it is actually superior to the hemoglobin reaction) and hence is relatively rare, with the other organometallic oxygen-transport pigments essentially curiosities, very restricted survivors of a less competitive mechanism.
The mechanisms for oxygen transport in Vulcan humanoids have not been the subject of peer-reviewed research, for reasons that may seem obvious, and all that is known, per Star Trek canon, is that it uses a copper-based pigment “like hemocyanin” (but evidently, as might be expected on a different and more arid planet, not identical to it).
Most molluscs have copper in theur blood. Their blood is dark blue.
In all seriousness, I remember a very early Star Trek companion book (it may have been Franz Joseph’s *Star Fleet Technical Manual*, but I haven’t a copy handy - it may also have been a fan-produced wholly unauthorized work) that has sections on the biologies of several Trek races and described Vulcan feces as resembling owl pellets and Vulcan urine as being of sufficient concentration to kill plant life.
I don’t want stuff from some Star Trek fan book. I want to know about cooper blood based creatures in general. Thanks for the input so far. With clear oxygenated blood there would be no red flushed face.
IIRC, it was the Star Fleet Medical Manual. A high school friend had a copy, which he loaned me about 30 years ago. Other tidbits from the book:
[ul]
[li]Vulcan urine is black & viscous, like crude oil.[/li][li]Vulcan medicine has a lot in common with chiropractic.[/li][/ul]