The Hidden Physics Behind Your Breath

You breath all the time, whether you think about it or not. But how does that even work? And what is breathing for? Patrick’s got all the answers to your oxygen-deprived questions in this episode. And yeah, there’s physics involved. » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker » Watch more Human! http://bit.ly/HUMANplaylist » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com So far, we’ve discussed blood a lot in this series, but take a deep breath in and exhale because in this episode we are exploring the respiratory system. Breathing is one of the few things we do continuously, every day, without thinking about it. Our bodies, like other vertebrates, depend on oxygen to run our normal aerobic metabolisms. And though some of our bodily processes happen without oxygen, we still need to burn some oxygen in order to really take advantage of the food we eat. Meaning at some point, we need to start pulling oxygen from the air and depositing it into our red blood cells. And this biological process really depends on nothing other than good old physics. Those ideal gas laws you might have learned in high school? Dalton’s law? We see a beautiful example of them in the simple act of taking a breath. Find out more about all the hardware involved in breathing; why oxygen is so important; and how we pluck it from the air around us in this Human. #breathing #lungs #respiratory #health #human #seeker #physics #science Read More: How the Lungs Work https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/how-lungs-work “Your lungs are a pair of pyramid-shaped organs inside your chest that allow your body to take in oxygen from the air. They have a spongy texture and are pinkish-gray in color. The lungs bring oxygen into the body when breathing in and send carbon dioxide out of the body when breathing out. Carbon dioxide is a waste gas produced by the cells of the body.” Respiratory System: Our Avenue for Gas Exchange https://www.livescience.com/22616-respiratory-system.html “The hum