6.09.2006

to breathe or not to breathe

So, I was riding on a plane today back to Nashville. I was sitting beside this middle-aged lady with spikey hair. I noticed at one point that her breath was less than desireable. So I started doing that thing where you breath into your own hands (you know you've done it) in a vain attempt to smell your own breath and a thought occured to me...I am trying to breath it back in, but you can't do that because somehow smell is not the same thing as breath or air. All of this is confusing and beside the point...the point is the process of breathing...what a strange thing. You breath in one substance and within 1 second of you breathing it back out again it is something totally different. How is that possible? One second its Oxygen, the next its Carbon Dioxide....useless to you, priceless to trees...which leads me to my next train of thoughts. How in the heck do trees breath in and out. I mean I can see myself in 8th grade science just eating this stuff up without a second thought...."Oh so trees breath in what we breath out, that makes sense." NO...it doesn't make sense at all, in fact its rather bizzarre. All of this because a ladies stank breath. I didn't occupy my mind that long, I soon started to read a book, but I thought it was a worthy blog subject. Any thoughts?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

HAHAHAHA, that's when you say..."my ears always pop when we are up in the air...gum always helps me, would you like a piece?"

Should get them :)

Katie said...

so AJ, a little lesson in physiology for your wondering mind: when you breathe in oxygen, it's not one second that you breathe it back out -- you breathe it in, it goes into your lungs where it's picked up by capillaries (lil' blood vessels) in your lungs and taken to your heart where it's pumped through all the chambers of your heart then the still oxygenated blood goes to your body where the oxygen diffuses out and it picks up the carbon dioxide, it is then taken back to your lungs and "dumped" while more is being picked up...so yea -- it's a long process. I do not know though....how trees breathe. I'll ask them today and get back to you. haha. I LOVE YOU!

Anonymous said...

and exactly how many trees does it require to breathe in my out breath? is the popolutation of trees in a large sense somehow linked to the population of things that breathe out carbon dioxide? or is it that the population of things that breathe out carbon dioxide is somehow linked to the population of trees?