Compilation of free information about human parts, their function, assembly, repair, and maintenance
Hemoglobin in history and art
Historically, an association between the color of blood and rust occurs in the association of the planet Mars, with the Roman god of war, since the planet is an orange-red which reminded the ancients of blood. Although the color of the planet is due to iron compounds in combination with oxygen in the Martian soil, it is a common misconception that the iron in hemoglobin and its oxides gives blood its red color. The color is actually due to the porphyrin moiety of hemoglobin to which the iron is bound, not the iron itself, although the ligation and redox state of the iron can influence the pi to pi* electronic transitions of the porphyrin and hence its optical characteristics.
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Artist Julian Voss-Andreae created a sculpture called "Heart of Steel (Hemoglobin)" in 2005 based on the protein's backbone. The sculpture was made from glass and weathering steel. The intentional rusting of the initially shiny work of art mirrors hemoglobin's fundamental chemical reaction of iron binding to oxygen.[12]
The content of this section is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (local copy). It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hemoglobin" modified August 21, 2007 with previous authors listed in its history.
