45 Unique Facts Related to Blood

• Blood is the fluid substance of the body of humans or other animals that carries essential nutrients and oxygen to the cells and removes the waste material from the same cells in the body. Blood is 7% of the body weight of an adult human. The average density of blood is 1060 kg per cubic metre. An adult human has about 5 liters of blood while a newborn baby has only one cup of blood. Blue whale has 6500 liters of blood and an African elephant has 450 liters of blood.
  

• There are 250 million blood cells in one drop of blood. An adult human has 100000 miles of blood vessels. A blood vessel is a pipe that transports blood. Vessels are of two types: Veins and Arteries. Veins carry blood from tissue to the heart, while arterial transport blood from heart to tissues.

• Blood cells float in a yellow colored fluid called blood plasma. Blood plasma is 90% water and contains other nutrients, electrolytes, gases, proteins, glucose and hormones. Apart from this, it also contains RBC (Red Blood Corpuscles), WBC (White Blood Corpuscles) and Platelets.

• Human blood contains atoms of metals including iron, chromium, manganese, zinc, lead and copper. It may also be surprising that the blood contains small amounts of gold. There is about 0.2 mg of gold in the human body and mostly found in the blood.

• The most important function of RBC is to transport oxygen from one place to another. RBC contains a protein called haemoglobin and it contains iron which gives red color when it mixes with oxygen, that is why our blood is red in colour. RBC is made in the bone marrow and circulates in our body for 120 days. One RBC takes 30 seconds to complete one round of our body, that means it travels 19000 km in a day.

• WBC plays a very important role in maintaining the immune system of our body. It protects our body externally from bacteria, viruses, cancer cells, infections and other external diseases.

• Platelets are very important component in our body to form blood clots. The blood clotting is required to stop the flow of blood when our skin is cut. Blood clotting sometimes shows negative effects as well. When a blood clot forms in the vessels going to our brain, then a brain stroke is formed and when a blood clot forms in the vessels going to our heart, then there is a risk of heart attack.

• Human blood has only 4 types (O, A, B, AB) but about 800 are found in cows, 13 in dogs and 11 in cats.

• Different organisms have different colored blood. Humans have red colored blood. Crustaceans, spiders, crabs, snails, shrimp, octopuses and some arthropods have blue blood. Leeches and some other types of insects have green blood. Purple blood is found in some species of sea worms. Beetles, butterflies, corals, grasshoppers, jellyfish and earthworms have either yellow or colorless blood. The color of the blood depends on the inorganic complex involved with the oxygen-carrying proteins. The red color is due to haemoglobin in humans while the blue color in arthropods is due to haemocyanin.

• How blood group is determined? The blood that is made of red blood cells, and these RBCs are covered by a layer of proteins called antigens. Blood type A has only antigen A, blood B has only B, blood AB has both and type O does not have both. There is another type of antigen in red blood cells, which is called RhD, this antigen is part of the group of 61 Rh type antigens. When there is RhD in the blood then it is called positive and if there is no type then it is called negative type. Common blood groups are thus identified and classified as: A+, A- B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+ and O-.

• If someone needs a blood transfusion, it is important to know his blood group. If a person with a negative group is transfused with the blood of a positive donor, it can be fatal for him. This is because his body's antibodies can reject this blood.

• For this reason, those with O- blood group are called universal donors because they have neither antigens A, B nor RhD. In such a situation, the blood gets mixed with the blood of other groups without being rejected.
  
  
  

• When a person falls or gets hurt by a heavy object, a red scar like bruises occurs. This happens when the blood does not come out but the place inside the skin becomes red. This happens because the blood vessels break under the skin and the blood moves into the surrounding tissue without leaving the body; and when the skin is cut, the blood starts coming out of the skin. It initially shows red color when blood enters the tissue. But when blood cells start dying, it gradually changes its color from red to purple, then green and finally brown. Over time, the body mixes these dead blood cells with the blood stream and throws them out of the body as waste. Mostly this type of injury heals by the body on its own within 2 weeks and if it does not heal within 2 weeks then there is some other problem then it is very important to consult the doctor.
  

• The heart pumps blood with high pressure throughout the body. This pressure is so high that if our heart pumps blood out of the body, it can bounce blood up to 30 feet. Arteries carry the blood along with oxygen from the heart to the whole body parts and there they release the oxygen to form energy in the cells and the veins carry the carbon dioxide located there to the heart.

• The health of a human heart can be measured by blood pressure. Blood pressure is the pressure exerted by blood on the walls of blood vessels. Blood pressure is usually measured on a human's upper arm. The blood pressure in a normal human being is about 120/80 mmHg. If blood pressure is higher than this, then there is a complaint of high blood pressure in which the risk of heart attack increases and if it is lower than this, then there is a risk of blockage of blood vessels.

• The life span of blood is only 42 days i.e. donated blood can be stored only for 42 days. Because of this, about 13 lakh blood points are wasted every year. So much blood was donated in America after the 9/11 attacks that the Red Cross had to throw a lot of blood because they did not have enough arrangements to store them.

• The first transfer of blood was done on 15 June 1667 about 350 years ago. The world's first blood bank was opened in Chicago in 1936. India's first blood bank was opened in 1942 in Kolkata with the help of Red Cross.

• Any healthy person above 18 years of age can donate blood. The amount of fluid lost while donating blood is replenished by our body within a few hours.

• We cannot donate blood for 6 months after getting a tattoo or piercing. After that blood can be donated because tattoo or piercing is done with thin needle which is used again and again. There is a risk of infection due to this needle. For 6 months, the blood donor's body makes antibodies. After that donating blood reduces the risk of infection.

• It hurts a lot when cut on the finger with paper or razor blade. The reason for this is that paper hurts us at the microscopic level. It would have been such a small injury; we could not even see the injury properly with the eyes. When we get hurt signal receptors present in our body send messages to the brain and this receptor is found in large numbers in some parts of the body like fingers, lips and tongue, which sends signals our brain very fast even when there is a slight injury. That's why even a slight injury to the tongue, finger or lip gives us severe pain and sometimes we are not able to work until this injury is recovered.

• When we get cold, our nose starts running. With increase in the cold, our nose also becomes cold. So to keep the nose warm, more amount of blood starts flushing into the blood vessels. Due to this reason, the blood in the blood vessels becomes more fluid and it starts making a lot of mucus and this mucus starts flowing out of the nose.

• You will be really surprised to know this fact. Athletes with disabilities, especially those who have spinal injuries and sit on a wheel chair, sometimes intentionally injure their lower body such as a toe or finger. After breaking body part, the blood pressure in their body increases and their performance in the game becomes better. But this tactic has now been banned and has been brought under the category of fraud.

• In an emergency, coconut water can also be utilized in the body like blood plasma because it also contains electrolytes like sodium and potassium in equal amount of blood and its pH is equal to blood.

• A Russian scientist began to transfuse the blood of young people into himself to achieve immortality. But he died due to transfusion of blood from a person suffering from malaria.

• Due to stress or tension, the blood of our body becomes thicker. That is why whenever there is a physical attack on us or we get scared, then there is a feeling of blood clotting immediately.

• Many times when we look at the sky, some white and white dots appear moving in front of our eyes, in fact these are our white blood cells.

• It is physically impossible to urinate and give blood at the same time.

• You would think that mosquitoes drink a little blood, but let us tell you that 12 lakh mosquitoes can suck all your blood at one time. Mosquitoes like to suck blood of "O" group and only female mosquitoes suck our blood to nurture their eggs.

• We feel strange seeing pus but it is actually nothing but WBC that died protecting our body from infections.

• In 2007, a team of Canadian surgeons found that a patient had dark greenish black blood coming out of his body during an operation. Later, on research, it was found that the patient was taking migraine medicine, due to which his blood had become of this color.

• A 13-year-old man named James Harrison needed 13 liters of blood during the operation. Then when he turned 18, he took a pledge to donate blood for the rest of his life. A rare antigen was found in his blood that could cure Rhesus. The man has donated blood a record 1000 times and has saved 200,000 lives.

• In India, a girl named Twinkle Dwivedi suffers from a rare disease, blood comes out of her whole body like eyes, nose, ears, hands, feet, neck, soles, 50 times a day without any wounds or scratches. Even today medical science has not been able to understand this mystery.

• In 1997, Saddam Hussein issued a decree to write the Quran with his own blood and now after his death Muslim leaders are confused as what to do with the Quran, because it is a sin to keep blood in the Quran but to burn or destroy the Quran would also be a kind of sin.