WEBVTT - From the Vault: I Drink Your Blood Type 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.600 Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:11.000 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:13.640 Time to go into the Old Vault. And this episode 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.640 was called I Drink Your Blood Type. It was originally 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:22.400 published on October three, nineteen. I hope you're ready. Yeah, 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.880 exactly a year ago to the date. So let's drink 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:33.320 blood drinkers, night walkers, children of the night. Why hunt 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.960 for scraps in the shadows when you can feast in 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:43.360 style at New York City's hottest, trendiest vampire nightclown doors 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.440 open at midnight and we let in only the juiciest 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:52.800 mortal party goers who appease your diabolical, he asked me, 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:57.560 off of seductive lounges, blood bath dance floors, and people 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.480 dancing in cages. So many people dancing in cages who 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:02.960 don't even know how to give them out, They just 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:08.160 keep dancing. And unlike typical vampire nightclubs, we separate the 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:13.080 hood by blood type for your convenience. At Brooked, you 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.280 will feast in the certainty that all human partiers and 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.280 our medievalist to prove throwing room are type A B 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.720 and our foam dance party Room runs on Type O 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:31.520 negative exclusively guaranteeing chance floor look for us on Vampire 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:36.399 You Help and don't forget to leave a review. Welcome 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.080 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. A production of I 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:47.800 Heart Radios has to works. Hey you welcome to Stuff 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:49.840 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.280 I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, it's still October. That means we're partying. 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.160 That's right. It's Halloween, and Halloween means blood. It also 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.639 means vampires. As I think everyone probably got the idea 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.680 from from the title this episode and from the cold 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.960 open that we just inflicted upon you. You know, what 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.560 I was just wondering is whether in the month of 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.040 October people actually like in the industry, you can see 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.080 a spike in demand for caro syrup or general you know, 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.760 corn syrup products and and red food coloring, is the 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.480 demand for fake blood enough to make a dent in 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.600 an otherwise massive agricultural or industrial food product, Well, I 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:27.080 mean it depends. I mean a lot of people are 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.560 just going to buy a bottle of fake blood. They're 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:31.440 not going to bother to mix their own. I guess 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.480 that's you know, I bet mixing your own is cheaper though. Oh, 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.680 I'm sure it is. But not everybody has the skill 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.519 to create a you know, a good batch of Kensington Gore. Uh. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:43.120 I remember when I was a kid, I was trying 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:44.959 to make fake blood and I did it by mixing 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.960 red food coloring with water, and that was how I 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.720 discovered that blood is thick. Yeah, I mean it. It's 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:52.560 far better just to shoot it all in black and 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.679 white and use chocolate syrup. But even that gets a little, little, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:58.880 little pricy, I imagine. And also it's gonna, you know, 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:03.119 just attracted by of ants. But yeah, when you think Halloween, 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.440 you think monsters, you think vampires, and of course you 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.239 think blood. Now, blood hasn't really changed in the course 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:12.600 of human history, but our understanding of blood has. Blood 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.800 Letting used to be a lot more common, right, yeah. Uh, 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:20.040 And sometimes sometimes vampire tails change to reflect some of 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.040 the new ideas regarding blood. Oh yeah, Like, I'm sure 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.920 you can see vampire lore being affected by, say that 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.680 the four humors theory when that was in vogue, Like 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.639 the idea you could have a sanguine personality that might 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:33.880 be caused by an excess of blood. In the body. 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.920 I'm sure that that makes them specially juicy targets for 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.160 vampires or something that you're gonna mean, there's like there 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.560 are there are four different vampires for each of the humors, right, 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.880 oh right, so you get the black bile vampire and 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.640 the worst kind of vampire to be because it's so bitter. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.080 So yeah, the ideas of what blood is make change. 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.480 But of course there's first of all, the simple notion 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.720 that blood is food. Various human cultures include the consumption 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.480 of animal blood in one worm or another in their cuisine. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.040 Blood sausage is one example of that. Blood tofu and 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.760 in certain Chinese cuisines is another example. Never heard of 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:13.320 this blood tofu? Yeah, look aout made from blood? Blood? Okay? Uh? 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.000 And then there's the idea of blood is this is 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.320 a fluid that contains our vital life force. Right, this 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.160 is a classic of the vampire trope. Uh. And then 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.200 naturally we do need blood to survive. But traditions have 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.640 you know, tend to go above and beyond biological fact 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.279 and stressing this. Oh yeah, the blood takes on a 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.080 kind of magical essence. It's the you know, the ecore 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.680 of the human Uh, there is. I think you can 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.719 see this often when there is emphasis on monsters and 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.159 other creatures having differently colored blood than humans do. Like 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.440 their blood isn't red, it's green, and that shows that 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.320 there's some different there's some kind of different essence to them. 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.640 And then there's also all kinds of beliefs about Um. 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.719 You know that your affinity for your family is based 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.159 on the metaphor that you air blood, which is funny 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.400 because you might not necessarily share physical characteristics of blood. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:07.400 You might not have the same blood type as either 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.279 one of your parents, But there's this idea that you're 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.000 bound by blood and that I think that takes on 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.000 a more kind of a magical kind of quality in 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.719 people's minds. Yeah, this idea that there's this blood line 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.480 flowing through the centuries. Um, I do have to say 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.279 I love a creative blood color, and in a monster 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.680 or so certainly in like a Star Trek alien type 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.320 of scenario, if there's only so many colors, like what 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:34.800 you mean, like purple blood or what? Oh yeah, wasn't 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.840 it Star Trek The Undiscovered Country where the Klingon's head 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.080 head pink blood like looks like pepto bismal. Oh. I 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.719 always chalks that up too bad early c G I, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.320 because they're in their blood c G I, and that 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.560 movie is like really early c G I floating around 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.479 in the zero G environment after the as it is 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.960 really impressive. Well, it looks terrible now, but that movie 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:56.400 still holds up. Is one of the better of the 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.560 Star Trek movies. Now in modern times will often encounter 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.599 vampire stories that invoke blood banks and and uh and 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.200 blood drives sometimes uh and sometimes you'll even see recognition 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.880 of blood types. And generally this amounts to which blood 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.320 of vampire finds most tasty interesting. I don't think I'm 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.440 very familiar with it. Well, I am familiar with, of course, 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.080 blood banks and blood drives, because I remember when I 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:22.680 was a kid and my family would go to the 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:24.960 beach and we get Sci Fi channel on the TV 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.200 and watch that show Forever Night, which is about a 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.440 good guy vampire who is also a cop, and he 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.679 keeps a refrigerator full of like blood bank type style 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.159 blood bags. I guess he drinks those in order to 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.880 not have to kill people because he's good. Oh Man, 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.040 Forever Night. I never watched Forever Night, but it's one 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.080 of those Canadian series where a lot of times I'll 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.080 watch another Canadian series and I'll look it up and 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.200 it's like, oh, this person is from Forever Night. Forever 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.279 Night is the like the beating heart at the center 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.400 of Canadian drama from that period of time. Yeah, I 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.760 mean I never saw that much of it, but in 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.040 the episodes I saw, because he's a good guy, he 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.080 doesn't drink from next he drinks from bags. There's um 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:08.159 there's a Tales from the Crypto episode that called the 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.920 Reluctant Vampire that started Malcolm mcdowe as as the titular 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.600 Reluctant Vampire and also had just an all star cast. 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.200 Of course, like all those episodes, just an embarrassment of 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:25.120 riches generally squandered on some sort of in a sappy, 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.240 bad taste kind of plot. But this this episode is 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.720 pretty good. But in that one, he's depending on a 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.920 blood bank as well. But then occasionally like meeting real 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.640 live hosts to prey upon, and he ends up asking 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.640 them a lot of questions about, you know, if they 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.800 had dental surgery recently, that sort of thing, But but 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.120 he he never asked them about their actual blood type, 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.880 dental surgery, wait, like he fears the amalgam in their 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.680 teeth or something like, we might have silver and if 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.880 he just needs to have a good pa you know, 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:58.320 biomedical history before he uses them as his prey. Fair enough, now, 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.560 of course, the the HBO series True Blood features vampires 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.840 that have a clear preference when it comes to blood type, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.920 and they use the synthetic blood product that's labeled and 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.480 bottled called True Blood, which is in the show available 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.080 in in different types. So you can get your oh 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.440 negative true blood bottle you if you prefer a B, 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:21.400 they have a B as well. Oh so all the 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:23.840 I haven't seen True Blood, but all these vampires are 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.920 of the forever Night type where they don't drink from people. 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.560 They drink from bags they're supposed to because it's basically 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.320 like vampires are out amongst us, uh, and we're living 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.280 alongside each other. They have kind of their separate government. 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.640 We have ours, and there's like a treaty that says 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.440 they're only going to drink their synthetic blood products or 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:46.079 you know, consenting adult humans that wish to have their 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:50.160 blood drained that sort of thing. Okay, it's kind of 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.559 a mixed bag, but it it also has a wonderful cast, 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.560 and Dennis o Hair in particular was a real standout 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.240 playing this character the who was the King of Mississippi. 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:00.880 Stephen Root also ow it up at one point and 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.560 it was great. Stephen Roots wonderful. Yeah. Um, There's another 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.160 movie at this time that I ran across that was 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.400 interesting that invokes blood types. N nine's The Return of 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.240 Doctor X. Seen this no, I. I was not even 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.720 familiar with this at all because it stars Humphrey Bogart 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.880 as an evil doctor. Hey, okay, yeah, who's been brought 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.240 back to life? Because this is a sequel? Uh in 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:25.800 this in this movie has brought back to life with 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.079 synthetic blood and he has to find type of victims 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.160 and drain their blood and use it in order to 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:36.400 stay alive because his synthetic blood cannot replenish itself. This 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.720 was a few years before The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.200 In case anyone's wondering, you know, I like I really 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.840 like Humphrey Bogart as a villain type character, or at 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.439 least as a very dark and troubled character as opposed 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:50.439 to I don't know. You might say that he has 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.920 shades of villainousness in his detective stories and in Casablanca, 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.240 but in movies like A Lonely Place, or he plays 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.120 this like scary, abusive creep or in Treasure the Serrah Mare. 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.680 I guess you could say also, I think Bogart actually 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:05.959 makes a great villain, and I wish you'd seen him 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.640 as a villain more often. So I want to see this. Yeah, 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.079 And now, of course Dr X is no typical vampire. Generally, 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.960 the you know, the models very much parasitic in nature. 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.199 Perhaps a vampire can taste the difference amid blood types 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.200 in the same manner that a wine connoisseur can taste 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.199 things in the wine that others can't, or at least, 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:28.160 you know, claims to have that ability. You've got some 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.000 skepticism about the smell, YEA. I want to come back 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.679 to it at some point, because I feel like there 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:35.520 was an old episode of the show where we we 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.400 looked at one of these studies that was a real um. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:40.360 I mean, I don't even know that what extended was 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.080 a true study, was just kind of a guy who 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.880 got you exercise with wine experts, like tricking them into 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.160 saying one wine was another, and and and so forth. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.880 But I think there's I'd like to to give the 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.160 topic due diligence sometime and really get into like, because 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.280 sometimes the you know, the idea of priming and you know, 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.560 bringing in some sort of prior knowledge to your experience 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.120 of the wine. Uh. You see people talk about that 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:05.520 is if that's a you know, a negative you know, 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.440 But I mean that's part of the appreciation of any 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.560 kind of food product or certainly a wine is knowing 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.400 where it came from and making connections. And if some 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.800 of the connections or maybe partially imagined or exaggerated based 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.079 on your prior knowledge, I don't think that's necessarily a 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:22.160 bad thing at all. Have you been to any of 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:27.680 these places that do wine style tasting notes but for oysters, Um, yes, 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:29.840 I have. I'm all in on that. When I have 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.440 the oyster, I'm like, yes, I take yes, that's right, 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.440 salted melon, yeah. I mean the cases like that, they're 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.840 providing me with the specific terminology and descriptive language that 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.800 I don't have, uh, you know, regarding oysters or or 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:45.960 certainly wine or what have you, and it gives and 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.120 then I can I can look for those things in 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.200 my my taste sensation that I'm experiencing right now. Once 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:52.839 they give you the words for it, you can kind 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.360 of find it in the sensation void with with most 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.920 cases of fictional vampires, though, yeah, they're I think we 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.880 can we can assume that maybe they could taste some 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.880 sort of difference in the blood type. You know, they're 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.320 essentially parasitic. They're they're digesting the blood now. And since 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.880 they're digesting the blood, you know it's not going to matter, 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.840 um you know what kind of what type of blood 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.280 it is, because their digestive system is going to break 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.720 down all those troublesome proteins. But then again, I don't 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.400 think I've ever seen outside of doctor X here, I 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:29.480 don't think I've encountered a vampire or vampire like creation 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.360 that can only use one particular blood type. Well, if 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.360 you imagine vampire physiology a little bit different, Like you're 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.600 saying that they just use a normal style digestive system, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:41.760 break it down for the nutrition in it. What if 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.720 it's that the vampire drinks blood in order to have blood, 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.480 So like when the vampire drinks blood, they're essentially getting 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.120 a blood transfusion. In that case, maybe the vampire would 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.160 need in fact, to have a compatibility test for the 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.040 right kind of blood because drinking the wrong kind of 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.600 blood could give them an immune response. Yeah, that would 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:01.960 I think it can make sense because it also would 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.240 would line up with some of these descriptions from folklore 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.160 where they would dig up the body of the vampire 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.800 and it would be just just just thick and bloated 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.520 with blood, like every you know, all its entire all 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.800 of its flesh is just just completely ballooned up with 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.480 the stuff. You know, you're saying that's the swelling of 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.160 the allergic reaction. Yeah, maybe, so maybe that's the that's 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.080 the explanation. Well, maybe we should get into how blood 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.040 types actually work, because I realized not too long ago 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.520 that this is something I should know, and I actually didn't, 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.960 so I had to go and read up about it. Yeah, 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.280 it's it's easy to go through life without knowing the 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.880 explanation for it and just and hopefully just knowing what 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.240 your blood type is, but not necessarily what that means. Right, Well, 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.120 should we take a break first and then come back 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:52.640 and talk about the blood type basics. Let's do it, alright, 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.280 We're back al right, So, if you know your blood 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.640 type or if you've seen blood types listed before, you 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.600 generally will have seen a letter followed by a plus 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.360 or minus sign, and that letter is probably gonna be 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.439 A or B or A B or O, but is 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.720 so okay? You know there are at least several different 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:12.880 types of blood, but you might not know what they do. 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.560 In fact, there are actually many different blood type families. 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.240 I think the known number of human blood group systems 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.160 is now somewhere in the forties, So there are tons 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.480 of different ways of classifying and grouping blood. But the 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.640 most common and the most important blood group types to 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.520 discuss are the A, B O blood group system and 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.600 what's known as the r H factor. Now you've heard 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.160 of these before, but what do they mean? Simply put, 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:44.480 blood type refers to which category of antigens you will 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.840 find on the outside of your red blood cells, and 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:52.040 that in turn determines how your body's immune system responds 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.920 to different types of blood from other donors because of 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.520 the antigens on the outside of their red blood cells, 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.760 and also how other people's bodies would respond to your 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.680 blood if you if given a transfusion from you. By 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.240 the way, Joe, before we go any further, what is 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.040 your blood type, I almost answered, but then I stopped. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.400 Should I reveal my blood type on air? I wonder 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.680 I'm getting flashes of some future like cyber scenario where 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:20.320 I regret sharing this information publicly. Well, I can't think 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:22.520 of a way people would use it against us. I 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.000 can think of a way Facebook will use it against us. 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.600 Well probably, Okay, Well, you don't have to reveal if 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:29.960 you don't want to. You want to reveal yours? Well, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.880 I mean, I don't mind saying that I'm I'm typo negatives. 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.920 Oh nice, just like the goth industrial band of the 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.040 same name. Well, you also have a rare and important 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.360 blood group, as we'll discuss as we go on. Yes, 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.560 and we'll we'll just consider Joe's blood type to be 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.000 what blood type enigma, Well, we'll leave it to the 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.200 listeners to imagine what it might be. Blood type question 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.840 mark equal sign. Yes, okay. So, red blood cells, we 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.440 know they serve the function of traveling through the body 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.560 and transporting oxygen mal fules to body tissues, and they 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.240 also carry away carbon dioxide. And so the outsides of 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.960 the red blood cells in your body will have these 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:12.520 little molecules on the outside on these structures made of molecules. 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.400 Uh that on the top layers of these structures consist 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.280 of various types of antigens that the and of course, 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.440 an antigen is just something that your body's immune system 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.320 can recognize as a threat and react to. And so 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:33.040 your red blood cells can have either a antigens, be antigens, both, 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.720 or neither. If your red blood cells just have A antigens, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.400 just these A antigen molecules on the outer layer, you 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.960 have blood type A. If you have just BE antigens, 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.080 you have blood type B. If you have both your 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.960 blood type A B, and if you have neither, you 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.000 are blood type Oh all right, I think that's pretty straightforward. 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.800 So really, yeah, they're they're like two critters at play here. 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.880 You can have either one, both, or neither. Now, of course, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.600 blood types are genetically inherited, you get them from your 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.159 biological parents, but your a bio blood type is based 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.720 on interactions between a number of dominant and recessive genes. 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:11.720 So the correlation between your parents blood types and your 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.240 own blood type can be kind of confusing. It can, 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.479 for example, happened that your blood type might be different 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:19.960 from both of your parents blood types because of a 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.880 dominant recessive interaction. Um. But if you want to work 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.240 it out, you can look up inheritance matrices for blood 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.520 type online. These are easy to find, right, Or you 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.120 can just do like most families do and just put 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.080 your blood in a petri dish and just go around 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.679 in a circle and put a hot wire in that 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:39.480 way he can find out whose family and who is 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.639 definitely not well. It's funny how how close that that 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:45.879 scene in the thing is to some of the early 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.280 tests that were done to figure out what was going 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.120 on with blood types. Get into that in a minute. Um. 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.159 So again, why does it matter which type of blood 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.800 you have if you're going to receive a blood transfusion. Well, again, 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.760 it's because of your immune system. So within your body, 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.879 you've got in your blood plasma, you have white blood cells, 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.760 and you've got antibodies that work kind of like defense drones, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.760 latching onto certain types of antigens that they encounter things 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:12.919 in your body that seem like they might be some 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.560 bit of dangerous foreign material in the blood. And of 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:18.760 course the main thing you'd be worried about, there are 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.960 some kinds of germs. Right now, generally we don't have 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.640 antibodies that will attack our own red blood cells. So 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:27.840 if you have blood type A, meaning you've got these 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.439 A antigens on the outside of your red blood cells, 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.399 your immune system will not attack A antigens because you 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.240 know you need to not attack them, they're they're going 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.440 to be abundant throughout you. But it probably will attack 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.720 BE antigens and vice versa. So generally your immune system 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.560 will attack whichever of these little molecules on the outside 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.080 of red blood cells you don't naturally have. So it 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.400 works out like this. If you have type A blood, 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.760 your immune system will attack BE antigens. If you have 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.520 type BE blood, your immune system will attack A antigens. 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.120 If you have type A B blood, you have both antigens, 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.920 so your immune system will attack neither of them. If 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:12.000 you have Type OH blood, you have neither antigens, so 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.920 your immune system will attack both following So far, yeah, 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:17.840 I think I think it's pretty straightforward for everybody. So 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.520 it's basically you know the starbillied sneeches, except a little 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.560 more complicated, like like you know three or four different 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.399 tribes of sneches. Well, right, I mean this means that 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:30.960 when you donate or receive a blood transfusion, you don't 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.359 always just need to match the same type between donor 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.040 and recipient. There are these inherent asymmetries and who can 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.080 receive what types of blood. For example, if you have 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.720 a B blood, you can receive blood from any other type. 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.119 You can receive A blood, you can receive B blood, 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.919 you can receive A B blood or OH blood. It 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.119 doesn't matter because you don't in your blood plasma have 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.040 antibodies to attack any of those other types of red 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.359 blood cells. And for this reason, type A B is 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.560 the unit versal recipient class. But if you donate a 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.480 B blood, that blood can only go to a recipient 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.520 who is also a B because that recipient otherwise is 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.680 going to have immune system reaction to one of one 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.160 or both of those antigens on the outside of those cells. Now, 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.560 on the flip side, type OH blood, which has neither 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.359 A nor B antigens, is the universal donor class. You 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.480 can give type O blood to people with A B, A, B, 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.159 or OH and it will usually be fine. Now I 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.640 think we should say that these donor you know, these 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.679 donor safety statements are for most cases, these are like 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:36.720 on average, they'll be better. There are always kind of 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.520 like anomalous reactions people can have to any type of protonation, 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.200 and and and and that also gets into the fact 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.480 that all things being equal, an exact match is always preferred, 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.800 but certainly in an emergency. Uh, that's when you see 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.800 cases where where you know the universal donor can come 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.959 in exactly. And that's a one reason. A common practice 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.920 in modern hospitals and clinics today is to collect blood 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.040 from a patient in advance of a preplanned surgery or 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.159 procedure in which a transfusion might be necessary. So if 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.200 you're going in for surgery these days, they'll usually take 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.679 some of your blood, you know, the day before, the 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.280 week before the surgery, and that way, if you suddenly 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.600 need a transfusion, if there's some emergency during the procedure, 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.040