Does anyone know an example of an oprganism that doesn't breathe in oxygen?
815771
Well plants are organisms that don't breathe in oxygen. They breathe in carbon dioxide.
1168670
Isn't that kinda like asking what would happen if humans didn't depend on oxygen anymore?\n\nIt ain't gonna happen, so don't worry about it.
506556
No mammal can 'survive' without oxygen.\n\nThey can survive without breathing for a while though.\n\nI imagine a sperm whale, about 90 mins
546490
you should have an oxygen dealer in your town\njust call the local health department or the local healthcare center
868418
# Anoxic autotrophs: Obtain hydrogen from chemicals such as sulfur.\n[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[Dead Zones are areas where the bottom water (the water at the sea floor) is anoxic, meaning that it has very low (or completely zero) concentrations of dissolved oxygen.]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]\nDead Zones are areas where the bottom water (the water at the sea floor) is anoxic, meaning that it has very low (or completely zero) concentrations of dissolved oxygen. These dead zones are occurring in many areas along the coasts of major continents, and they are spreading over larger areas of the sea floor. Because very few organisms can tolerate the lack of oxygen in these areas, they can destroy the habitat in which numerous organisms make their home.\n\nThe cause of anoxic bottom waters is fairly simple: the organic matter produced by phytoplankton at the surface of the ocean (in the euphotic zone) sinks to the bottom (the benthic zone) where it is subject to breakdown by the action of bacteria, a process known as bacterial respiration. The problem is, while phytoplankton use carbon dioxide and produce oxygen during photosynthesis, bacteria use oxygen and give off carbon dioxide during respiration. The oxygen used by bacteria is the oxygen dissolved in the water, and that’s the same oxygen that all of the other oxygen-respiring animals on the bottom (crabs, clams, shrimp, and a host of mud-loving creatures) and swimming in the water (zooplankton, fish) require for life to continue.\n\nThe "creeping dead zones" are areas in the ocean where it appears that phytoplankton productivity has been enhanced, or natural water flow has been restricted, leading to increasing bottom water anoxia. If phytoplankton productivity is enhanced, more organic matter is produced, more organic matter sinks to the bottom and is respired by bacteria, and thus more oxygen is consumed. If water flow is restricted, the natural refreshing flow of "oxic" waters (water with normal dissolved oxygen concentrations) is reduced, so that the remaining oxygen is depleted faster.\n\nMany of the areas where increasing bottom water anoxia has recently been observed are near the mouths of major river systems. While Satellite images can’t see the bottom of the ocean, they can see the surface, where sediments from rivers mix with ocean waters. The images shown here are Satellite images (SeaWiFS) observations of the Mississippi River delta, the Yangtze River mouth in China (The Yangtze River mouth is not currently identified as an area with an associated dead zone, but such conditions could develop there in the future), and the Pearl River mouth in China, near Hong Kong.\n\nSeaWiFS can also observe areas where water flow is restricted, such as the Baltic Sea in Europe. The image on the left features Denmark after strong storms caused flooding and increased sediment suspension in the Baltic. On the right is an overview of the Baltic Sea, including a plankton bloom in the Skagerrak just north of Denmark.\n\nThe apparent cause of the creeping dead zones is agriculture, specifically fertilizer. While fertilizer is necessary to foster bumper agricultural crops, it also runs off the fields into the streams and rivers of a watershed. When the fertilizer reaches the ocean, it just becomes more nutrients for the phytoplankton, so they do what they do best: they grow and multiply. Which leads to more organic matter reaching the bottom, more bacterial respiration, and more anoxic bottom water.\n\nThese effects can be magnified by catastrophe. When the heavy rains of Hurricane Floyd caused extensive flooding in North Carolina in September 1999, the heavy load of nutrients (from dead animals, flooded animal waste ponds, and numerous other sources) reached the sounds that lie between the coast and the Outer Banks, oxygen levels in the water plummeted. The picture at the top of the page shows the heavy load of sediments flowing into Pamlico Sound. SeaWiFS captur
898426
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_oxygen_generator
1039404
Lack of oxygen in your system!
457871
Asphyxia is where one person's air supply is being choked off or in the process of BEING choked off. (Not a good thing!)\n\nPeriodic breathing is a condition originating from an earlier medical or physical problem in that person's life where they couldn't breathe normally like they wanted to. (Preemies are a good example. Underdeveloped lungs shortens their ability to breathe normally. So they had to adapt.)\n\nMost people take regular and deep breaths. Shallow breathing is common.
1028957
Lack of oxygen.  Also, I'm not there.
639958
None that we know of. On earth, there is the right mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and other gases that is conductive to our breathing. Mars has different gas mixture which makes our lungs unable to work properly.
1092173
no, the disease usually cant live outside the body, it dies immediately from oxygen or the temperature.
337957
Pure oxygen, it would just explode. Very dangerous.
1089541
it is blue when exposed to oxygen but otherwise colorless
59269
Not sure what you mean. But here is two possible answers for you anyways.\n\n1) Oxygen which can also exist as Ozone (O3) which is a Triatomic molecule.\n2) Or like IDUNNO pointed out Astatine which is usually not considered because of its rarity in nature.
580413
Plants do need oxygen to undergo cellular respirtation.  They give it off after photosynthesis which requires CO2.  Certain types of archaebacteria use methane, sulfur dioxide, and a few other compounds to undergo cellular respiration in places with no oxygen, like underwater volcano vents.  Some organism, yeast for example, can reproduce without oxygen or another compound by means of anaerobic respiration.
958887
Lavender gave you the key information you need, i.e., too much oxygen damages the body. Probably the best-known example of this is blindness in prematurely born infants due to breathing pure oxygen for extended periods (which is sometimes necessary to keep them alive). There are probably medical techniques available today to minimize this problem, but it has been a serious issue in past years (20 years ago in one example I am familiar with).\n\nHere is a bit more information about breathing pure oxygen, and some clarification of the comments from others.\n\nYou can breathe pure oxygen for short periods in order to recover from lack of oxygen (athletes do it, as do firemen who have inhaled smoke, for example).\n\nThe air we breathe at sea level is at a pressure of 14.7 psi, and 21% of it is oxygen. (78% is nitrogen, and most of the other 1% is argon.) If you take 21% of 14.7psi, you'll see that we are breathing oxygen at a pressure of about 3 psi.\n\nPilots and astronauts can breathe pure oxygen, but as Lavender points out, they breathe oxygen at a pressure lower than sea level air pressure. If their oxygen is delivered to them at 3 psi, then it is equivalent to the oxygen in our air at sea level. (And incidentally, the air we breathe is not much changed at elevations up to 5,000 or 10,000 feet. As a rule of thumb, you can notice the difference in air pressure (the difference in the availability of oxygen) when you get close to 10,000 feet of elevation. At 18,000 feet, the air pressure is about 50% of that at sea level. And after another 18,000 feet, the pressure at 36,000 feet is cut in half again, so it is about 25% of the sea level pressure.)
129728
According to current theory, 4 billion years ago (4 bya) the atmosphere had no free oxygen.\n\nAbout 3 bya, cyanobacteria evolved, which produce oxygen as a waste product of their photosynthesis.  This oxygen was poison for many forms of life, resulting is mass extinctions.\n\n2.5 bya, there was enough free oxygen in the atmosphere for organisms with modern oxygen based metabolisms to evolve.\n\nSo, sometime between 3 bya and 2.5 bya, fire became possible.