• Question: IS IT TRUE THAT WE BREATHE IN METHANE

    Asked by BRADLEY to Richard on 16 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Simons

      Richard Simons answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      if there’s any methane around you, yes (a good example would be walking through a field of cows, you’ll definitely breathe in some methane).

      Air isn’t as uniform as people think, it changes dramatically over small distances (from one room to the next), we can prove this through our sense of smell, when we smell we sample the chemical composition of the air!

      Changes in the air chemistry are usually fairly small, up to a few percent, and humans do quite well at adapting to different air. As long as there’s more than ~10% oxygen (20% is ideal) and the rest of the air is inert (Nitrogen is great for this) then humans will be OK.

      We can actually breathe 100% oxygen, but it has some pretty nasty consequences after a while:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

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