14 DAY TRIAL // 1.The blood of all humans and animals is salty. Why? Because all animals started to evolve in the ocean, at least 3.8 billion years ago, under the form of unicelular creatures. Thus, the enzymatic systems sustaining life evolved during millions of years in watery conditions of high salt amounts. The content of the sodium chlorine (table salt) in the blood is just a third less than in the seawater.
2.A man who is 70 kg (155 pounds) heavy has five liters of blood; a woman who weighs 50 kg (110 pounds) has 4 liters. The red cells (hematia) live for 3 months, the plate cells die in 10 days and most of the immune white cells or limphocites do not live more than a few days. Only some cell types, like limphocyte T, survive for months and years. That's why the blood cells are continuously produced. During the embryo stage, this is what happens in the spline and leaver. After birth, the "plant" of blood cell production is translated to the bone marrow of the large bones, like femur, humerus and ribs.
3.Solar eclipses have a strong influence on blood. One hour before and half an hour after the eclipse, the sedimentation speed of the red cells is continuously modified, depending on the stages of the eclipse.
4.Untested blood transfusions can transmit various diseases, from Chagas (the South American variant of the sleeping sickness, affecting 18 million people in Latin America, transmitted through bed bug bite and causing heart attack after years of incubation) to malaria, hepatitis, syphilis and AIDS. In many developing countries, blood is not tested in all cases, as its trade is international and tests or analysis, which are costly, could decrease the expected gaining. Each unit of blood would require $ 40-50 to check the contaminating agents. Even so, they are not to be trusted if effectuated by unqualified personnel and with improper technology.
This situation is found in over half of the world's countries and 5-10 % of the HIV patients got infected this way. Annually, 8 to 16 million new cases of hepatitis B emerge this way and 2 to 4 new cases of hepatitis C.
5.Medieval Spanish nobles said they were blue-blooded. Why? Because they wanted to stress their ancestors had not dark skin, like the invading Arabs, but they were white-skinned, like Northern Europeans, with visible blue veins.
But there are animals which are actually blue-blooded: mollusks (like clams, slugs, snails, squids, octopuses) and some arthropods: horseshoe crabs (rather a type of marine scorpion), scorpions, some spiders and decapod crustaceans (lobsters, true crabs, crayfishes).
All these animals have in their blood respiratory proteins called hemocyanins, which have copper into their molecules!
Humans, all vertebrates (from fish to birds and mammals), some worms and some insect larvae are red blooded, because their respiratory pigment, called hemoglobin, contains iron.
When hemocyanin is not bound to oxygen, it's colorless, but oxygenation turns hemocyanin blue. Even if hemocyanin has the same function as hemoglobin, copper atoms are directly connected to protein while iron atoms are not in hemoglobin molecules. Hemocyanins' binding ability to oxygen is only about a quarter of that of the hemoglobin (explaining an evolutionary limitation for the groups that bet on the blue blood).
Hemocyanin molecule has a big size, that's why it is usually found free-floating in the blood, unlike hemoglobin, which must be stored in cells (red cells) because its small size would lead it to clog and damage blood-filtering organs, like the kidneys.
The story does not stop here: some animals are yellow-blooded. So are adult insects, which lack respiratory pigments.