Breathing

Breathing

Breathing is the process that moves air in and out of the lungs or oxygen through other breathing organs such as gills. Aerobic organisms of these types—such as birds, mammals, and reptiles—require oxygen to release energy via respiration, in the form of the metabolism of energy-rich molecules such as glucose. Breathing is only one process that delivers oxygen to where it is needed in the body and removes carbon dioxide. Another important process involves the movement of blood by the circulatory system. Gas exchange occurs in the pulmonary alveoli by passive diffusion of gases between the alveolar gas and the blood in lung capillaries. Once these dissolved gases are in the blood, the heart powers their flow around the body (via the circulatory system). The medical term for normal relaxed breathing is eupnea.

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Famous quotes containing the word breathing:

    What, really, is wanted from a neighborhood? Convenience, certainly, an absence of major aggravation, to be sure. But perhaps most of all, ideally, what is wanted is a comfortable background, a breathing space of intermission between the intensities of private life and the calculations of public life.
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    Richard Matheson (b. 1926)

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    The breathing came from those bodies, long warless, grown whiter than curds.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)