The joys and pleasures

Today we had a case study for AP biology, which was about a case that involved seven deaths due to cyanide poisoning. Of course, before we found out it was cyanide poisoning, we had to use the symptoms and data on the substances concentrated within the patients in order to find the pathway in cellular respiration which was being affected. There is some sense of pleasure when you are trying to solve such a question. Pulling together the symptoms and data, and thus making a hypothesis or claim on what may be affecting cellular respiration. My favourite question was this one: "Given you now know what the action of cyanide on cellular respiration, explain why the patients died of lack of oxygen while their blood oxygen levels were normal?" This question stumped me for five to ten minutes, but once it clicked in my head I felt pleasure from being able to form an answer to such a question. Even if it is not correct.