Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A Procrastinator's Rant on the Mechanisms Behind Population Blood Type Distribution

Trying to avoid working on my 'Unknown Report' for Micro. I've got my flow chart done. It took me 3 hours and is crazy. This is one of my many things to do when avoiding writing a 10-15 page paper on lab procedures that's not due till Thursday... On with procrastination!

Classes are almost done. I just need to get through fridays' finals and I'm in the clear. YES! ONE MORE LECTURE, ONE DAY OFF, AND....damnit...2 finals...and the damn paper. I've sworn to myself I won't play the Sims2 tonight because I'll get sucked into it so easily, especially with the new skins I found that prove I am the biggest nerd ever...

Did you know that the best way to get through a day at your monotonous work is to put audiobooks on your iPod? It's working great for me, especially because my normally very pissy iPod is cooperating. I've got Michael Crichton, JRR Tolkien, and CS Lewis keeping me entertained while I find more books to distract myself with. :D

Nori, my TA confused me in class today. We're talking about blood typing and will get to type ourselves on Thursday (even though I already know mine). She was talking about population distributions of blood types and said O type was the most common. What she forgot to say was that O+ is the most common, then A+, then...I'm not sure...but I do know that what I was thinking about, my blood type O-, is pretty rare. The whole Rh + or - thing kinda makes a big difference... 38% of the population...versus 7%...hmmmm.... that's, what, almost 1/3 of the national population?

Do you know why O+ blood types are so common and AB- is the least common? Its because, O+ blood types have the most circulating antibodies in their blood. They have antibodies against A and B type blood cells (or more specifically the markers on it) and have circulating Rh antibodies. All three of these will not only kill any A, B, or AB marked cells, but any antigens that resemble A, B, or AB marked cells. The same is true in reverse for AB-. They have the least circulating antibodies in their blood and are more at risk of getting an antigen infection. The reason O+ blood types aren't even more numerous is that O blood type is a recessive trait, while A and B types are both dominant.

Another fun thing is that Plasma donor-recipient patterns are reversed from blood donor-recipient patterns. AB type is the universal plasma donor and O is the universal plasma recipient. Probably because of circulating antibodies in plasma (which isn't a big deal in blood transfusions because the concentration of antibodies from the donor to recipient blood type is so low). This still doesn't give me enough reason to not get some extra cash by donating plasma instead of blood. I'm a college student. I don't even own a car. I need money.

Yes, I do realize that was a total nerd rant right there...I'm sorry. I'm a science geek... [sigh]. Maybe I'll go write the introduction to my paper...

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