An Epiphany About Vulcan Physiology

Maybe the green blood wasn't such a good idea.

 

Star Trek does drop little hints that Vulcan body temps are cooler than us humans.

 

That's certainly another interesting biological theory about a mammalian species with copper-based blood. It's food for thought.

 

And miss out on this conversation?

I think its great. One of my favorite aspects of aliens is discussing their physiology.

 

Same here! I tried discussing Vulcan blood physiology with my high school bio and chem teachers XD

 

I did as well. My high school chem teacher was very helpful

 

That might describe people that come from a northern climate, are naturally extremely pale, and never see the sun. Vulcans don't come from that kind of a climate.

Anyways, Vulcans, including Spock in TOS, do have a green tint to their skin. It's subtle, and more apparent in certain episodes, but it's there in all the cases I can think of. Even Tuvok is given a green tint at times. It's more apparent when they are angry. Their faces flush green.

 

Well, since they are supposed to be unemotional, it doesn't happen very often.

 

I remember that, but I've seen Vulcan anatomy diagrams on Strek Trek "Wiki" sites showing that the heart is where a human liver would be and the two organs are tightly packed together in that section of the torso.

 

Spock looked particularly greenish in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." He must have been flush with fever or something.

Kor

 

You know there must be a reason why an organ is situated at a precise position in the human body and not somewhere else. If you change arbitrarily the position of these organs, you have a good chance of obtaining an individual that will have at some point a hard time to survive. Like if our heart were positioned anywhere outside of the rib cage then a single punch in the abdomen would kill you.

 

But the Vulcan heart is still protected by the ribcage bones, just not the sternum itself.

 

Barely.

 

Perhaps only Spock carried that deformity, being a mix-up n all.

 

Shouldn't Spock's blood be a mix of copper and Iron hemoglobin?

 

Vulcans are used to external temperatures higher than normal on Earth:

In "The Deadly Years":

So Vulcans should have a higher internal body temperatures than Earth Humans, unless there is a process which can make their internal body temperatures much lower than external temperatures. Such a process would probably involve part or all of their body surface radiating a lot of heat and feeling very hot to the Human touch.

I think that a mixture of copper and Iron hemoglobin would probably not be viable, but perhaps those more expert in biochemistry can think of a way to make it work.

In "Journey to Babel":

So Spock has both Human and Vulcan "blood elements". But I don't know if that means Spock has Human red blood cells as well as Vulcan green blood cells. Spock's blood looks green, so Spock probably has a low proportion of red colored cells in his blood, low enough not to affect the color much.

 

Well, if you mix green and red you get brown.

That could be confusing. If Spock is wounded in his derriere you wouldn't know if he's bleeding or having diarrhea.

 

It is.

Not really.

 

If you mix green and red you'll get brown. That's a fact.

 

I'm no medical professional but I have yet to mix up diarrhea and blood.

I think I could tell the difference for many reasons.