Blood shift has at least two separate meanings:
- In medicine, it is synonymous with left shift.
- In biology, it may refer to a phenomenon seen when mammals submerge in water. It is part of the mammalian diving reflex. Blood vessels in the extremities contract, leaving a higher percentage of the entire blood volume in the torso. An effect important for freedivers is the resulting widening of the lung's capillaries. It reduces the lung's residual volume, thus increasing the depth at which the residual volume is reached (untrained average is at about 30 meters). According to Yasemin Dalkılıç, she can feel plasma enter her sinuses when diving to extreme depths whilst participating in free diving competitions. See also: immersion diuresis
Famous quotes containing the words blood and/or shift:
“Refuse them!
If we too miss out, don’t create our lives,
invent or deeds, do them, dance
a tune with our own feet,
we shall thirst in Hades,
in the blood of our children.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“Ghosts, we hope, may be always with us—that is, never too far out of the reach of fancy. On the whole, it would seem they adapt themselves well, perhaps better than we do, to changing world conditions—they enlarge their domain, shift their hold on our nerves, and, dispossessed of one habitat, set up house in another. The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)