Blood Cells

        A red blood cell will take in oxygen with its hemoglobin protein molecule, which has a heme group and an iron molecule. Oxygen will bind easily to iron, since about 98% of the oxygen in the blood is bound to the iron in the hemoglobin.

            Red blood cells do not have nuclei, but white blood cells do. White blood cells help your body to attack harmful microorganisms, yet they only make up 1% of your blood. The white blood cells use the blood vessels as a means of transport to get to areas where some harmful microorganisms have been detected. They then “slip” out of the capillaries to get to the infected area.

Finally, there is one other type of blood cell called platelets. Blood platelets are the cells that will clot the blood when blood is leaking from a blood vessel. The injured cells that make up the lining of the blood vessel will release a chemical that is called thromboplastin. This chemical undergoes a lot of chemical conversions until the thromboplastin turns into a fibrin web that traps red blood cells and blood platelets. This makes a plug, so that no more blood will leak in this area.

Blood Types

Blood types are determined by the glycoproteins (protein with a carbohydrate molecule on it) you have in your blood (found on your red blood cell membranes). There are four different blood types, and they are A, B, AB, and O. These blood types mainly show which people can donate blood to a person. If you were to have donors of all types of blood, then you could have blood type A people receiving blood type A, blood type B receiving blood type B, etc., without any problems. Although, if you do not have all blood types at your disposal, there is one more thing to learn. Anyone can receive blood from blood type O, and anyone can give blood to blood type AB.