Lives in New York CityAuthor has 1.8K answers and 5.2M answer views Updated 9mo
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Why does water freeze in below freezing temperatures, but not the
blood in our bodies?
That's the point of being warm-blooded. It's why warm-blooded animals,
such as mammals, have a survival advantage. We create our own heat
through metabolism so that we're not at the mercy of the weather. If a
cold-blooded animal is in 28°F weather, its body will eventually be
28°F, where it'll freeze to death (since blood and other vital fluid
can't move while frozen). On the other hand, we humans will attempt to
maintain a healthy body temperature by generating our own heat.
In fact, that's what a calorie in foods actually measures: the amount
of energy or heat it can produce when metabolized (if you've studied
Spanish, you'd know that "calor" means heat). That, along with the
ability to release heat when it's too hot (i.e. through blood flow and
perspiration), is why humans can live in so many different climates.
Compare that with fishes. A betta, for example, needs to be kept
between 78F and 80F, and temperatures below 74F can kill it.
As for human blood, it also freezes at "below freezing temperatures"
when outside the body. Because of the salt and other chemicals, the
freezing point is a little lower, around 28F. Although my lab uses an
$8000 ultrafreezer (set to -50F) to quickly freeze blood, I've also
used an ordinary food freezer, and the blood froze just fine.
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https://www.quora.com/At-what-temperature-does-blood-freeze-both-in-the-body-and-in-the-vial
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