Post the third

Well I never promised regular posts now did I?

So what's next on my list after telling you it's OK to break reality I shall pretend you asked.....well I could talk about scientific quackery and how "science" can be manipulated to dupe people. However if you want that find a lovely book written by Ben Goldacre. Instead I shall talk about blood groups.

There are more than you think, blood goes beyond A B O positive and negative. There are many others which have lovely names like Duffy, Kelly, Lewis and Kidd and can mostly be ignored unless people develop allowed antibodies against them. So why bring them up? Well mostly just to say blood transfusion can be more complicated than shoving Opos from one person into another Opos person, it's not without some risk.

These antibodies make people harder to transfuse and can have other impacts especially if you're a pretty menopausal woman. But scare mongery aside the real question is how many know their blood group? How many donate? Probably not enough. So even if it is to be nosy and find out if you're an A B or O go give blood. You never know when you might need it yourself.

Well that's been way too serious so now consider this...if we used copper instead of iron in red cells as our oxygen carrier of choice, our blood would be as blue as the noble mantis shrimp.