If you want to know why humans have eight blood types specifically, or why other animals have more or less, it has to do with how your immune system works and what a cell's environment is.
Keep in mind that your cells are living in an entirely different world. A dark one. They only know if something happening if they bump into it or get some kind of a chemical whiff... sort of like touch and smell. Which works a lot better than you might think because at the small scale that cells are at, chemicals move around REALLY fast.
So if you're a white blood cell, you need to know what belongs and what doesn't belong. Fortunately, it's been trained in the task. When it was immature, it ran into a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff, and if it couldn't figure out which was which it was 'removed'. There are actually HUNDREDS of different things white blood cells look at to tell what's you and what's not (these things are proteins on your cells called 'antigens').
And that is why it's so hard to find a good donor for an organ transplant - some stranger has to have a really close match to things that really only make a difference to white blood cells, and are therefore usually very different from person to person. Red blood cells aren't like the rest of the cells in your body, though. They are comparatively simple because they do one straightforward job. So red blood cells only have three of the hundreds of antigens that might cause problems with other cells.
Which is good news for us, because it makes giving blood to another person relatively easy. And actually when you do donate blood, the people who collect it end up filtering out all the white blood cells that you donate (those guys will just make trouble if they're put inside another person - they'll think EVERYTHING is bad!). Mostly by chance, some animals have a lot more or even less antigens on their blood than we do. If you go far enough, of course, there are even animals without blood cells at all... but that's the topic of another question.
Hope that helps!
2007-06-13 11:45:40
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answer #1
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answered by Doctor Why 7
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I guess you mean how you get them? They are hereditary traits. For example the Rh factor is inherited as a simple Mendelian trait. If you inherit one or both of the dominant alleles (RR or Rr) you will be Rh-positive. If you inherit both recessive alleles (rr) you will be Rh-negative. The ABO system is an example of multiple alleles. The gene has three possible alleles: IA, IB, and i. [ A and B should be superscripts of I; I stands for isoantigen]. You inherit any two. For example, if you inherit IA and IB you will be Type AB. On the other hand, if you inherit i and i, you will be Type O. To be Type A, you can either be IAIA or IAi, and to be Type B, you can either be IBIB or IBi. There are other blood groups too. As far as I know, all the blood groups are on autosomes (non-sex chromosomes).
2007-06-13 11:04:39
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answer #2
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answered by Val 4
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Blood kind is a type for extremely some the proteins (antigens) got here upon on the pink blood cells our bodies make. those who've "kind A" blood also produce "kind A" antigens and produce "Anti blood kind B" antibodies. similar is going for someone who has blood "kind B". They produce "kind B" antigens and produce "Anti blood kind A" antibodies. even as someone receives the 'incorrect blood kind' what's taking position is that the persons own "Anti blood kind antibodies" are attacking the recent pink blood cells because the recent pink blood cells have the protein declaring they are "A" or they are "B" throughout them. those who've blood kind "AB" make both antigen proteins on their pink blood cells and they dont produce both of the 'anti blood kind antibodies'. considering that there aren't any antibodies there isn't any longer some thing to wrestle with the pink blood cells protein markers (aka antigens) so as that they do no longer have a nasty reaction. they can get blood from everyone. Blood kind O is unlike blood kind A or B and its even different than blood kind "AB". The "O" ability "different". even although the kind of antigen protein their pink blood cells have is 'different' than "A" or "B" they nevertheless produce the 'anti a' and the 'anti b' antibodies. so as that they ought to in ordinary words ever receive blood from different "blood kind O" donors. answer nicely my guess might want to be that all of us look different act different and sound different and why no longer have different blood. also we've different blood to make us look different if all of us had an similar blood lets likely look an similar. desire that solutions hat
2016-11-23 18:38:37
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answer #3
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answered by kobayashi 4
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