Brain Soda Podcast - Episode 31 - Blood Soda Budokai

Episode Date: September 2, 2023

On this week's episode we're continuing our coverage of the original DragonBall series and talking about how blood works!

Brainsoda Came here to do two things chew bubble gum and podcast and We're all out of bubble gum. It's the brain soda podcast I as always am your host Kyle joined by my co-host and co-hort Brad How goes it today? We going to be talking about blood. And Brad? Yes. Last episode, we started our ongoing coverage of Jaggin Ball. This episode, we're going to be doing our second double shot topic when we talk about the 21st Tenkaichi Budakai arc from from Dragon Ball. So, okay. Before we start this, what does Tenkaichi and Budokai mean in English? The strongest under the heavens is the name of the tournament proper if you were to translate it to English. So like Tenkaichi is strongest under the heavens and then Budokai, I'm assuming is martial arts tournament.

I would assume so, but as far as the wage, you know, it's pretty Japanese. I mean, I've actually wanted to for a long time, but it never, it's deeply devoted my self-suffer day. My brother's Chinese only because he lived in China, and like it's crazy here. Right. Yeah. And my nephew is like, you know, half Chinese. Right. So what we're going to talk about with this arc is how Toriyama went from doing a travel manga essentially, right? Like, going to all these different places, interacting with the town's folk and things like that of the place, the natives as to where they're traveling to and things like that.

Toriyama is going to look at the sales, going outside of the actual events of the Manga's and the arcs, and see like a kind of dip down for Dragon Ball. And he looks to fist of the North Star, which like this big powerful strength gauge kind of anime which Dragon Ball in many arguable aspects will become. His power is over 9,000. Right, absolutely. So one of the things that arguably we may be kind of glossed over, but there was a reason why is in the very early stuff of that mango, you meet Master Roshi. Now Master Roshi gives them a dragon ball.

You get the Nimbus Cloud at that point from him and... The Nimbus Cloud. Yeah, I forgot about it. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. The Nimbus Cloud for those of you who may not know is a cloud that can answer to commands to like come back and forth, you can only write it if you're pure of heart.

And it's essentially where Goku is able to fly before being able to rock it himself up with power and stay in the air. Yeah, because like, yeah, that just goes away later in the series. But yeah, like a lot of other things in this series, it gets nerfed quite fast once you get into Dragon Ball Z. Deeper into it, I would say. Other people got to fly. We can't be

dealing with no nibbous clouds. I mean, nibbous is still there in the sand saga a little bit and stuff like that. It is. Literally. But literally by the end of it, it's like a cart to wheel off whoever and they're all beat up. You know, right? Like it's not, it's not what it is when you first meet it. That is a very good point, Brad. And I appreciate that. Definitely. And you allude to the further training and development with Goku as a power set, which is automatically ingrained into him

as being this kind of mythical strength level character. Yeah, he just has like, well, like he has strength and he doesn't realize, I mean, I guess he realizes it. He like fights and stuff, but like, But he has a naivete that doesn't really explain to life. Yes, him gauging that power and trying to grow. Yeah. But Roche, however, sees that he's pure of heart

by being able to use the Nimbus cloud. Yeah. He sees that he can kind of really adapt and grow into some of the most powerful stuff that he can show him with the Kamehameha and promises to train him when he comes back. And this is that comeback. Yes.

Like I said though, this is the return to Kameh house. Our introduction to Krillin, you know, continued perversion with Ro Roshi. One of the things I find pretty funny about this arc though is that at one point he has them as a part of their training or to even earn it is go find him like some Spritely Japanese girl, they go talk to a mermaid and like it's a fun little kind of scene. That's true, yeah. They're introduced to this character who will sneeze and then turn to like a gun-toting blonde. She is like a split personality thing, right? Right. Almost like it's like two different people. Yes, absolutely. But moving on from that, when she's at Kamehous, and it's finally kind of starting to iron out as a situation going forward

and her being a character within the book and the anime. He tells her to put on this, you know, official comedy house garber, whatever it's like this lingerie set. And when she comes out and it kind of seems like a typical rosy, you know, perv-fester, whatever you'd like to call it, like you pan back over and they're all wearing one too. And I think that's just like a funny little gcha back to the I mean you could argue misogyny that's laying throughout this one. It is.

I mean yeah. That is the thing like yeah I hate to reiterate it but like Rochia's pretty cringe in this it really is but I mean yeah it's a little problematic I agree with you. He is better in like the later series but like Dragon Ball is foundational and like it is a really good series Like you need to watch that I think before you watch any other ones for sure Well, I think it's definitely one of the things that lends itself to If you don't know once you do it makes everything

125% richer right like honestly it does. Exactly. Even with Dragon Ball Z's first arc, like slamming you right into a huge retcon, it's really not that bad for all the payoff that comes after that. But that is way further on ahead in our coverage. So right now, we're focusing on kind of our main core cast going forward. Roishi, Krillin, Goku, and obviously the characters that we had met and allied with before in stick around but play like a way more side car kind of role, right? Like they're there, they're kind of like mirrors for the audience to a certain extent. They give some exposition during what the training that we're about to talk about happens for, which is this arc overall, though martial arts tournaments arcs.

So Krillin and Goku go through all these little, like, kind of, karate kid-esque, like, menial tasks that slowly, and somehow, kind of, perplexingly, evolve them in their training as skilled fighters, at a strength level, and things like that. It's almost like Star Wars. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's like Yoda and Luke. It's almost like Star Wars. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's like Yoda and Luke. It is almost not, yeah.

It's a lot like that. A little bit, because he's like, yep, or yeah, you're a karate kid, like you said, you know, the wax out wax out. Yeah, totally. And it's one of those things, though, too, that again, like I feel like when you look at Mango first comic books, I think it's so interesting. We even kind of talked about it at the beginning of the segment where it like there's travel manga. There's high school, and the mangas, there's cooking mangas, there's sports mangas like seemingly like any kind of daily thing or hobby can kind of

have its own niche market within that sequential art, right? Which I think is really cool, but like yeah. Anime and manga kind of are stereotyp stereotypically is like shown in stuff like fighting spirit Powered sets and like you know, it's all about your main protagonist being the strongest of them You know what I mean like it is a little different than typical anime's I would say or may like I don't know May this one because it keeps so much of the lighthearted comedy. Even I think you could argue that perhaps Toriama has like a kind of perverted sense of humor or he knows to go to a certain extent to try to make you laugh. Like he thinks that something he can bank on to make you laugh.

Maybe that's part of it. You know, but like I feel like that's it. You can have Roshi be this huge martial arts master who's super serious and takes a like whole tonal shift for the series or he can be kind of a you know not one note joke but he can be a very like oddball perverted character and make this story work because there's your lighthearted element on the side of all the action drama we're about to throw at you. Yeah, because like, exactly, like, because Roshi, you know, like, and I don't think we've really like fleshed us out too much yet. It's that like, Roshi, he's, he's master Roshi, you know, he, like, he's the master for a reason.

He's like a master of martial arts and everything. We did say that he helped train and stuff, but like, that's this whole thing, you know, is that like he's like this Yoda. Like, yeah, he really reminds me of Yoda now. He is the archetypal master. Right. Yeah. I'm assuming combatant, but like a way, huge power set and like orchestrator of things to a certain extent too. We'll get into that with this arc. So we go through with our training, we get to the tournament itself,

Yamcha's a part of it, and all these combatants have to go through preliminaries and things like that. So when we get down to our core cast of like, who's in the playoffs of this tournament essentially? So Yamcha, Krillin, Roshi, Goku, is our main cast cast in the tournament. And characters like Pwar, Ulong, Bulma, kind of staying in the stands and dealing with all that, right?

Krillin ends up fighting up against this guy named Bacterium, which is this really like big fat gross guy who smells and grosses out his opponents and things like that at one point Goku like Bricks the fourth wall it'd be like you can beat him. You don't have a nose like you know like that's again a funny fourth wall break a really cool kind of moment when he wins that fight and break a really cool kind of moment when he wins that fight and Rochi, however, is taking the role of Jackie Chung here. And this is where the orchestration kind of comes into it because he doesn't want the glory of victory in this tournament to go to Goku or Krillin's head. So he decides he is going to masquerade as the great Jackie Chung and beat them and you know allow them to kind of gauge themselves against and unassuming you

know fighting your master is one thing fighting a stronger combatant in all else tournament would be significantly different right yeah it's completely like that's that's why I think he hides his identity because the song yeah yeah he does that multiple times throughout the series doesn't he does he continues on that that ruse as well But what I'm saying is that his original intentions as joining as Jackie Chung would be a such right like you need to gauge your students They can't properly do it against their master and on top of that Oh, I see you're saying if they were to win they could be like, you know, so it's almost like a test It's not even just like he wants to he wants to gauge how well they were fighting and everything

Yeah as well. I would say yeah So from there the only person who really seems to wise up to this though is Yamcha and that's one of the things is Yamcha's a character really is that row he he knows Who's who and what's what. So he kind of susses it out. He literally tries to confront Roshie multiple times through the arc. They face off, he loses, and we have another interesting thing though within this tournament where there's a character who actually gets some light. He's not part of our cast, and I don't really think he comes back. Maybe at all in this.

And that is Nemoo. So Nemoo is this like kind of Indian type character, a monk looking as guy who is their fighting in the tournament to give his village water. Otherwise, you know, he needs the prize minutes. Yes, that's like kind of like the main character. Yeah, to like, yeah, to save his village essentially. He needs the prize minutes. That's like the main character. Yeah, to save his village essentially.

Yeah, exactly. So he ends up having that sustout with Jackie Choum reading his mind. So it's the first instance of any like higher than Keyblast kind of power that we've seen from a character. And he's Namu's beat in a character called Ranfan, who's this kind of like, I think kind of fun little play again like we were talking a little punch back to some of the misogyny where like she's able to get as far into this tournament as she is by using the way men would handle her either using her sexuality or her perceived weakness. And Namu being as modest as he is doesn't, you know, he doesn't want to go a new combat with a woman,

you know, and eventually though to save his village, he kind of has to close his eyes and win the match, right? So Namu moves on through the tournament and Krillin is beaten by Jackie Chung as well after he beats bacteria and Goku has to fight this gear in which is Similar to some of the anthropomorphic characters. We've seen throughout the manga and the anime He's this big like triceratops ask character and There's kind of funny little hijinks that happen through in there him using the Nimbus to stay in bounds and things like that because one of the big things Rolling through with these tournaments is that like if you're out of bounds and hit the ground

You're out of the match. You have lost, right? Yeah, it's almost like Sumo kind of yeah, and one of the funny little Another funny little anecdote fight things that happened is at one point when Krillin and Rochy are fighting, they literally go so fast that the announcer has to have them like walk through all the things that have happened within the fight up to that point. I don't remember that. It's the only way. They talk to Krillin and they're like, what even just happened and then they react all of it. Yeah. That's funny. Well, I mean, that's the thing. It goes, man, I remember when I was a kid watching that.

And like, you know, like, their move was so fast. Like, man, I wish I could move that fast a bunch of stuff like that. Right. That is one thing about like, no. The fighting and stuff in Dragon Ball and Dragon Muzzi is very unique. And like, it's something you don't really see

in other types of anime and stuff. Well, one of the things I find really cool, but again, kind of a little bit of anime stereo type is at this point, everybody has like signature moves like their professional furs. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know what I mean? Like with Yamcha, you got the wolf thing fist.

You got the rock paper scissors punch with Goku before the Kamehameha moves and to be his main move. I always remember solar flare from Piccolo. That's the other big one. Yep. I mean to be fair, like I feel like it's one of the big appeals of that show. Is it so cool to see the Kamehameha come out the Gallic gun and things like the solar flare. You know what I mean? Like there's so many cool little things

that call out that you know what I mean?? All the ways that they do those things, especially when you're the age we were watching this stuff. It really speaks to you in that power ranger that's, I wish I could kind of level, but even as an adult, to me, it's always one of the things I'm like, yeah, I get them. You know what I mean?

Because it is, yes, exactly. It's just pure, it is a great, and I mean, even to watch it now, it is a great like enemy even to watch it now. Like, it is a little different to watch. I don't think I can watch the modern stuff, you know, like, I, we talked about that kind of last time, but, um, and Dragon Ball though, it's just, there's something about it. It's very, it's nostalgic for sure for me, but like, it is a good, a good intro to enemy, I guess. So moving on through the tournament, run fan, bacteria, um, and Namo, and Yamachan Krillin even at this point, have all kind of on through the tournament, Ron Fan, Bacterium, and Namu,

and Yamashun Krillin, even, at this point, have all kind of fallen by the wayside, and we get into the fight between Master Roshi as Jackie Choon versus Goku, and we end up seeing the great eight transformation again in this, and it's the first time that the moon gets blown up in this series. Yeah, forgot, okay. And Jackie Tune ends up victorious.

Yeah. Sorry, like, yeah, let's not breeze over this. Yeah. So the moon causes Goku to turn. On a full moon. A full moon. You have a, yeah, exactly. You have the great ape transfer back into the first dark with this really quick. But even when we see it for the first time, it's kind of alluded to in this way that tells us narratively like Goku more than likely became the great ape and that's why Grandpa Gohan wasn't around and that's what means so much to him with that four star ball originally

is that he sees Grandpa Go on with the net ball and now at this martial arts tournament We have seen the destructive mystical side of Goku that it seems like he doesn't even know exists and boom We go into the series from there with you blow up the full moon And I feel like this really is where dragon ball And I feel like this really is where Dragon Ball becomes Dragon Ball and that builds the foundation to become Z. The arc we're gonna talk about after this, like, is a little bit... I would say it's my favorite. It might be my favorite arc because you get a lot of that travel, you get a lot of that side character kind of touch and feel, but like you also have a huge nemesis with Goku and the red ribbon army. But right now we're focusing on Jackie Chung's, you know, winning in the tournament. Goku and Yamcha and Krillin have all kind of emerged

from this crowd of participants, not only being our right-along characters or whatever, the cast that we're following, but like, now at a world level, these guys are established as some of the strongest people there are, and like, it's gonna get interesting from out here. Because again, I feel like you look at Fisil and Orstar, you adapt it to your Kung Fu comedy based on journey into the West and Dragon Ball is no longer any of those things, but it's it's own thing. It surpasses something that inspires its tonal shift, but Toriyama keeps enough of his personality or a sense of humor. Keep that tonal shift in a later more fun vibrant form.

It really does. It really is. I mean, because this is the thing, I've watched a few different enemies. And like Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, whatever, all of them. But Dragon Ball, if we're talking about Dragon Ball here, is not very anime-y.

Is like, so people that, I mean, there is anime elements with like the faces and things like that. Right. But it's not really like super anime. is like, so people that like, I mean, there is anime elements but like the faces and things like that. But it's not really like super anime. And like, so people that are like, maybe afraid to watch anime's, maybe give this a try because it's a little different

and like, especially like it has raunchy humor. Obviously we've talked about that. But more here than anywhere else, it does die down. It does die down definitely. And like, man, it has good messages too. It really does have good messages. So like, I mean, Dragonball is like, yeah, one of the top cheer for me is definitely up there is in the top 10 of the best like anime's ever. No, absolutely. And I think, I think there's a reason why in the last episode, we talked about Goku being a kind of parallel

to Superman and some extent. And I feel like that kind of comes into play to make a full circle with the Nimbus cloud. Here's a character who's so pure of heart, he's the only one able to use this thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, like that comes through many times, true. He's like completely like, you know, like,

there's not like a bad bone in his body. Right. He's like, he's like, he's always just like, just the most happy, go-luckly carefree person at like throughout the entire series. Yeah. Yeah. That is the most consistent running theme of him is this happy, go-lucky, almost gullible, not gullible, but you know what I mean? Like, but less than ever. But he will be serious. Like, he messed with his people. You messed with his people. Or then, that.

Or, eventually, right. Yeah, he said, oh yeah, if you threaten to blow up the earth, he's gonna be mad. Yeah, right. Well, and in another thing, he was, he does love some good competition. Him, he kind of, I feel, evolves.

Definitely. He always loves to fight. Yeah, he is a fighter. Oh, you think you're strong, huh? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he is always like, I wanna evolves. Definitely. He always loves to fight. Yeah, he is a fighter. Oh, you think you're strong, huh? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he is always like, I want to beat the strongest. Yeah, that is very true. So like, I mean, it is.

He always strives to beat the strongest. I would say that it gives him more of a goal than Superman needs to have like goal. He never like goes looking for a fight, I guess. That's the thing he's doing. Yeah, it's like, it's always, yeah, for sure. I'm going to go out and space and fight to people. Yeah, you know, you already see that. Although he does go out in the space he's saying. Yeah, it's like, it's always, yeah, for sure. I'm gonna go out and space and fight to people. Yeah, you know, you don't really see that.

Although he does go out in the space and fight people. Oh, I guess it's the afterlife because it's the Chi planage, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like one thing, like, I, you know, I really noticed though, like, thinking back, like there wasn't that much blood in Dragon Ball or the Dragon Ball series at all.

Like, you know, do you remember, like, because there is a little bit, I guess they'd have it on there. They're like, you know, a little bit of blood running from the cheek and stuff like that. I know the manga gets a little bit more risky with the blood, but like a lot of other things, it's an adaptation, like,

if it's a little too dark for television, it gets cut. So yeah, there's some more blood in what we're talking about, but no, I mean, for the most part, it's not terribly bloody, but I have a feeling our next subject is going to be pretty bloody. Yes, it is quite bloody because we are talking about blood. Yes, so it's going to do it. So I guess to define blood, right, got to start off on what is blood? It's a specialized body fluid that's circulated around the body and that's pumped through the heart, right? I think most people know what blood is,

but yeah, like if you think about it though, man, blood is like really strange kind of. It's this weird waterway for, I mean, your essential like function, it's like the body's right. Yeah. Going back to the anthropomorphizing or whatever of our body.

Yeah, right. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, it makes it transports oxygen. It transports nutrients. And like, I mean, all that testing we can do with, to search for different kinds of diseases. And you're different levels of your various things. What you can get from blood as far as information,

the body, is very important as well. It is crazy, yeah. So there's four main components of blood, though. So there's the plasma, the red blood cells, the white blood cells, and platelets. And it essentially blood itself to break it down to its like most basic thing. It transports oxygen and nutrients

through the body. But it also forms blood clots and that like you know that's what is when you get a scab that's the blood forming a blood clot right and you obviously need that you just be leaking blood all the time right. So let me ask you a question. If that's the surface level top, the scab, is there like a second underbelly beneath the skin towards the muscle of the cut itself that's like a glob of coopy, you're kind of... We'll get into that later, yes. Yep, we will definitely will, yep. But I mean, another thing blood does is it

prevents infections and diseases. So like, I mean, really like it's the oxygen, the nutrients, and the disease, like the immunosuppressant. Like that's where your body, that's where it happens. Exactly white blood cells. That's where all the fighting of all the, you know, like when you get us cold or when, you know, you get a bacteria or a cut, like all these things, blood is what reacts to it. You know, it's the moving part of your body. That's true, right, because your blood being filtered in certain places, senses, that there is things in it, like a virus, a bacteria.

Definitely. Cool. Yeah. And like, it also, like, I mean, it brings waste products to the kidneys and the liver, too, you know? Like, so like, when you pee, you know, you're urine is like the waste products of your blood. Like, that's the byproduct of your blood. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't think about how much the blood filters through those organs or whatever is a much.

Yeah. Yeah. For real. Yeah. And also, like, I mean, you know, we're kind of getting a little like whatever graphic, but like, you're, you know, your poop, your feces, like, that has a bunch of red blood cells and stuff in it too. Like, that's like that you poop out a bunch of your blood as well Yeah, but the blood or the the filtered Elements within blood like I or so the filtered elements that well like okay I should have just claimed this like I need to always do this to be gay I am a not a doctor and I'm like nowhere near. I might get some of the stuff wrong.

From what I understand, like you're urine is for like, you feel there's not the blood, the bad, the things in your blood, it feels like impurities and stuff. Well, right, yeah. Your red blood cells though, like that stuff, like we'll get into this later, they're very short-lived. Yeah, exactly, they're short-lived.

So like they gotta go somewhere. And like, or the broken down parts of it, you know, you poop out that, you know okay yeah yeah yeah and please this is not a medical podcast please do not take anything we say without consulting a position of some sort or you know yeah but to continue going so and one last thing that people often forget to continue. So, and one last thing that people often forget, and I just experienced today in a cold pool versus a hot outside when I was sweating, is it regulates body temperature, right? So like you can cool your blood by cooling that.

You can like one part of your body, you can cool the rest of your body and things like that like your blood is a big temperature regulator. That is one of the main things that your body uses to regulate temperature. I never really realized that blood flow. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, you know, that's why your extremities get frostbitten and stuff. There's less blood flow. But anyways, so to like the volume of blood, right? Plasma makes up 55% of it while like the blood cells themselves or like the red blood cells, white blood cells, and the platelets make up the other 45%. The vast majority of that 45% is red blood cells.

But as a total volume of your body, it's like 78%. So it's like, right, very mean, you'll small for red blood cells. Exactly. Well, I mean, blood itself is like 70% of your body. It's about 12 pints of men and 9 pints of women. Give or take, you know, like an average man. Yeah, suck at women. Well, you know, women are typically small. No, I know. I just make a joke. Exactly. Yeah. But like one microleader, and I don't know how much

you know, like a microleader is like less than a drop of water. Okay. A drop of water is probably like maybe 50 microleaders or 30, something like that, right? So he's very small amount. That contains 4.7 to 6.1 million, or RBCs, or red blood cells. Yeah. 4,000 to 11,000 white blood cells and 200,000 to 500,000 platelets. So like, just that little tiny bit. That's a very specific. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's not a specific, you know, it's very wide range. But like this little tiny amount contains so much. No, that the microleaders, the microleaders think of it like, you know, a lead pencil, right? The very, very tip most of the sharpest tip. Yep. If you click out like a 0.7 lead like one time, that's like a microleader. Yep, if you click out like a 0.7 lead like one time, that's like a microleader. So like blood, I think most people know it like it's pumped through the body through the heart, right? And it's oxygenated through the lungs. So I guess it doesn't start in the lungs, but we'll just start in the lungs. It gets oxygenated. It's pumped in through the heart and out into the body. Right, right.

And those are arteries that it's being pumped into. So that's oxygenated blood. And that's going out and it goes through smaller and smaller, archery oles, and then like into the little tiny vessels into eventually it's like capillary. So it's just like diffuses out into your body. And then, once it's the oxygen is taken from that, the blood is taken back up through the same way,

but these are veins now. So your arteries have the oxygenated blood, your veins have de-accogeneated blood. And like again, it's kind of the reverse. It goes up, goes up, and it comes through the lungs where you know you breathe in, you thought all that oxygen, and then you breathe out, and He thought all that oxygen and then you breathe out and release CO2, which is sort of carried by blood. We'll get into that in a minute. But, and then again, the cycle continues. Right. No, I mean, that's a big part of the reason why your breath intake has such an important

function to you being able to do anything, right? This because like, once you're not breathing adequately, you're not oxygenating your blood adequately, and thus your body is pumping out like, let an optimal blood, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, that's the whole point of like, the breathing, it's crazy to think about, man, like, you really think about this, like, you're breathing in air, this molecule, this element of oxygen is binding to this little round disk of a red blood cell, and then it's being transported all the way through your body to some random spot and then it just diffuses out

a let's it go and then like, then it comes back and it does it all over again. Cycles it all through, do do it again, right? Exactly. This was discovered, well blood circulation, I guess, was discovered by William Harvey in 1628. And like 1628, man, you would think by like, man, that's pretty late.

Yeah, like obviously the people knew what blood was, right? But like to not know that it circulates through the body, how would you, like, I don't know, that just kind of seems like. Well, yeah, I mean, that is weird. Like why wouldn't, why wouldn't you figure out what things were like that time? Yeah, but like, nobody knew that it circulates. Yeah, but like nobody knew that circulates.

Well, but that's what I mean. Like the adequate piecing together of things. Like if you haven't figured out what veins were, if you figured out what this was and that, like why wouldn't, what did you think the function of the heart was with its beating? Well, there's a humors and all that. Like that's another thing we have to talk about

in a future episode, because some of the medical things is crazy, but so okay, so to kind of get into like the components, right? Plasma is like I said, the liquid of the blood, and like now it's often donated, like you hear about like Plasma donation in a lot of like, you know, lower income areas, it's kind of, I didn't look up why it's donated. I'm assuming it has like lots of good, oh, the way it is, you know, it's used in a lot of different medical applications. But for whatever reason, you get paid to donate plasma

versus like donating just whole blood. So, but this plasma, and which is probably why it's valuable, is made of like water, sugar, fat, proteins, and salts. So, its main function is to obviously transport the blood cells, but it's also used to carry like cladde proteins and different hormones and proteins and enzymes. So this stuff is probably extremely valuable to different medical things, which is why it's more than just blood. Yeah, you extract from it to make Yeah, you yeah, you know hemophilia actually need coagulants or whatever it would be. Yeah, yeah

It's definitely important, you know, and like it's essentially though just like kind of the it's the buffer Or not the buffer the like the filler the filler of the blood, right? You know you need that like transporter. Yeah, it's what fills the canals to make venezoph... traffic, right? Yeah. So like, what, like, it's mostly made up though, is red blood cells. Like, I stated earlier that... Yeah, the key is to element. The plasma is 55%, but like, 40 to 45% of it is red blood cells, right?

Right. So like, like, most of it is red blood cells, with a little bit of white blood cells and platelets and like oh sorry well with the liquid you know traveling through that liquid of plasma most of it is red blood cells. They're also called erythrocytes or RBCs and I think I call them RBCs earlier just because like to say red blood cells a billion times is gonna take a long time but they're bright red right? And they're also they're concave on sides. So they're like almost like a donut shaped bike. Donut, that doesn't have the hole, right?

Exactly, don't it that doesn't have the hole, exactly. Or like two bowls, I guess they're like connected or something. Yeah, but they're more shallow than that, right? Like they're not terribly deep. Yeah, yeah, it's exactly. These cells contain a specialized protein called hemoglobin.

And what hemoglobin does is it binds the oxygen. So like without hemoglobin and mammals, at least we wouldn't be able to breathe. Okay, so this is the thing that like binds the oxygen and brings it throughout our body. Different animals throughout the, you know, the kingdom, use different types of cells to bind the oxygen, which is really cool because like, like you think like I'm gonna blood's red, but really like blood is not red. Blood's only red in mammals, right? Like, for instance, and things like crustaceans,

the mullis, they use a cell called hemocyanin to carry the oxygen and that uses copper and that makes it like a blueish color when it's oxygenated. All right, all right, yeah. And there's also chloro-chroenin. I'm probably so that wrong, but let's just go with that one. And worms, annelid worms, and also marine polykites that's green.

So like, their blood is green. And there's hemoethrin and some marine invertebrates that have like this violet pink color to their blood. So like, yeah, there's likeathythrin and some marine invertebrates that have this violet pink color to their blood. So like, yeah, there's like all these different colored bloods in the world. It's kind of cool, because you don't think about that. That is really interesting. Yeah, no. I mean, I kind of thought about like when you smash a spider

or some sort of insect, that kind of like tan-ish green. You know what I mean? That you see a lot, but still, I mean, beyond that, you would figure because they're so small that might be like viscera more than plug, right? It actually is. What that is is hemolimp. And in insects, it's a little different.

They don't have like a circulatory system because they're so small, they actually just diffuse oxygen through their bodies. And they're like, their whole bodies is just kind of like a liquid mass inside. With like, there is organs and stuff, but like, it's a hemolimp. And that's, it's not, there's not like a circulatory system.

Right, yeah, it's just kind of something prevalent within the consistency of their body. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of crazy. Like because of that, back in the day, like when there was more oxygen in our environment, because of the way the ecosystem was around the world. The atmosphere was warmer, there was more oxygen in the area. Bugs were able to get huge. Oh yeah, that's something. Yeah. Yeah, like there was like giant dragonflies and stuff like that.

But because they were able to diffuse more oxygen into their bodies, because there was a higher levels of it. Right. Like I said, the red blood cells, the hemoglobin, it uses iron to bind the oxygen. And that is actually, the production of RBCs is actually controlled by the kidneys with this erythropoetin, which is a hormone that it produces.

And one thing that is kind of weird to me that I discovered when I was in college and stuff is that blood is made in the bones. That's kind of a weird thing to think about. Through marrow? Yeah, the bone marrow. I didn't know that. I was kind of wondering where the consistency of blood really comes through that. Yeah, it's made in the bones and like it's like diffused out into the body, but like it's just like It's crazy to think about like your bones like I always just think of bones as like you know this like structural thing

But it's like one of the most important things in your body. You know, it's making all your blood Right Yeah, like from the time of like it starts till till it gets in your bloodstream is like seven days, right? Oh wow, so that's constantly renewing until it gets in your bloodstream is like seven days, right? Oh, wow. So that's constantly renewing, yeah, wow. Very much so. Yeah.

And like, well, because RBCs are weird, they have no nucleus, right? They're kind of just like this basic thing that transports oxygen. But because it has no nucleus, it makes it more malleable. So it can kind of like get into those little tiny capillaries and everything that it needs to. Right.

Right. But also because it has a nucleus and it's more malleable, it also breaks down a lot quicker. Most cells, I looked it up, I mean, I guess like fat cells and muscle cells, for instance, live like 12 to 50 years respectively, right? So like they're living a long time. Right.

Right, red blood cells live about 120 days. Right, yeah, I didn't think it'd be anywhere near that. That's crazy. Exactly. So they're constantly renewing. And they're actually one of the longest live parts of your blood. Well, one thing though, I guess, to talk about diseases of red blood cell is sick of salinemia.

And that is where the red blood cell almost makes a sickle shape, right? Like a C shape. It doesn't make that double concave. Right, okay. Because of that, it can't transport oxygen as well. And that just causes a whole host of like issues, obviously. If you can get enough oxygen through your body. So like that's like sickle cell.

That's why it's called sickle cell. Right, that kind of crust of blood shape, right? Exactly. Yep. So there's different blood types, right? We'll quickly go through those. There's A, B, A, B, and O. And then there's also R, H positive and R, H negative. And what these are, there's antigens on the blood,

which are kind of like identifiers, let's say on the blood cell itself on the surface. And there's an A antigen and AB antigen. Oh, is where you don't have either of those. Or you could have both, which is AB. Okay. So this is why like, you know, when you're donating blood, you know, you got to know your blood type or getting blood because you can't have the other antigen. If you're, let's say, let's say, oh, exactly, right.

And like, but RH positive and negative is a little different. If you're negative, you can get positive and then you'll just be RH positive after that and everything's okay. Like, you know, you can get positive, and then you'll just be RH positive after that, and everything's okay. You can get either one after that, right? But if you're a woman and you get pregnant and you're RH negative and your baby, if the father was RH positive and the baby makes that baby,

RH positive, you might have complications. And I think it's the second baby, if it happens twice, or something like that, because there's a problem because that blood is circulating Well because of the placenta and all that with yes like the the mother's body will like think it it's like a threat and like a Attack it. Yeah, so that's why you have to know the positive and negative. Yes, not too Important when you're just donating blood, but you know like yeah, like you know It could be important in other aspects. Exactly. So white blood cells, they're the soldiers of our body.

They're also called leukocytes. They count for 1% of the blood's volume, so very small percent. But they're also like, again, they're the soldiers. The most common one is the neutrophil. And that's the immediate response cell. So anything that like you know They see an invader or anything unusual in the bloodstream. It'll attack it right for her right yeah Yeah, but they only live like neutrophils only live like less than a day

So your bone marrow is just constantly making new ones like all the time which makes sense I mean, you know, you get an open cut and you could have several different things kind of comparable Yeah, they're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah.

They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly.

Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Yeah. They're probably gonna use up constantly. Like, it's a crazy response in your body. And you're like, oh, there's this little brown thing on my arm that kind of hurts when I poke it.

I don't even know how many I got there. Right. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, but so the other major types of white blood cells are lymphocytes. And there's two main kinds of them, the T and the B lymphocyte. And the T lymphocyte helps regulate like the function of other immune cells.

So they're kind of like, you know, they're the scouts essentially of your blood stream, right? They're looking for like different, you know, like different threats, like infected cells or tumors and things like that. And when they notice it, and they immediately start sending signals out to other cells like, hey, go over here

and start attacking it, you know? But also like attack the passengers in the cell, you know? So like, again, they're like, they're the scouts of the blood. To anthropomorphize the body, like I love to do. Right, yeah. Yeah. I think we all do. I think because we're not doctors or super familiar with illness of the blood, with

corresponding things like that helps. It's for me. Yes, it's easier for me. Yeah, exactly. It's easier to like understand what's going on. Then the B-Lipocytes are more of the long term guys. They're the ones that make the antibodies. And their function is to once there's a pathogen identified

as to make antibodies solely if it ever comes back again, our body's able to just immediately get on that pathogen. Just attack it immediately and know how to kill it. Right, right. That's why you inoculate yourself in things like vaccines and stuff like that, right? Yes, right. Exactly. That's the whole thing behind vaccines is so your body can build antibodies and one day we'll do a vaccine episode. I really would like to. Hey, we need to do a countdown. Yeah, for sure. But exactly. You're giving a

weak version of like a virus. In some cases, other cases is not even weak, it's dead or whatever, but it makes antibodies. Your body makes antibodies to protect against that in the future. So the last thing though, is platelets and are also called thrombocytes. And they're a little different than red and white blood

cells, right? They're not actually cells. They're just kind of like fragments of cells. And what these things do is they help in the blood clotting process. They help in coagulation of the blood. Okay. And like without platelets, you would,

like if you got a cut, you would just bleed out. You just keep bleeding and bleeding forever. You know, like, obviously we know how blood works. I'm assuming everybody does, you know, like you cut your blood eventually dries up and like forms a seal. It's kind of different than most like liquids, right? So living liquid obviously, it's coming for your body. But water doesn't do that,

it doesn't form a seal over or something. Right, yeah, unless there's some sort of a film on top or something like that that can solidify. Exactly, yeah. So it's a very important part of our body. And again, going back to what you said though, it can like, yes, it can clog up veins and everything because of that, like the clotting factor.

And there's different diseases that we'll get to do in a second that can be affected because of platelets. But these things only last about six days in your body though. So like still, again, very short lived versus like one day, white blood cells are 120 days with red blood cells. Right.

These are all very short-lived cells. But to kind of explain what happens when you get a cut, when you get a cut, it kind of forms a scaffolding at first. So we'll start, obviously identify the outside. It doesn't identify anything. It just builds up, just through different physical forces. And once it starts building up though, this protein called vibrant will start building up across these platelets, right?

And that kind of forms the scalfletting for a new tissue to grow. And that's like, you know, when you first get a cut and you get like that shiny, I guess like shiny, it's not a scab yet, right? But it's like almost like a thin layer of skin. I think that's what the fiber is. Yeah, that first first layer. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because it is. It's like opaque or transparent. Exactly, right? Yeah. And a lot of times it's underneath the scab. You know, things like that.

Like a scab is like, that's your platelets. That's just like a scab is like a bunch of platelets equagulated, right? Essentially. But like that fiber is like that structure that allows new tissue to form. And without that again We would just like have just raw

One last thing to talk about platelets and this is kind of going to a historical thing But it's just kind of funny every time I think of platelets it reminds me of this prints of Zarr Nicholas the second Alexi Nikola Vitch. Okay. Yes. I don't know Do you know much about like the end of the Russian Empire like before like the takeover by the Soviet Union and everything? Like Rasputin and stuff like that. By the time he was coming into, okay, so like, some but not much. So Zarnaklis II was like the last r of Russia.

And very sickly, right? No, his son was. Okay. His only son, Alexei. He was anemic, right? He had anemia, which it it's not a disorder of clotting and something to do with the blood cells, but yes, it's, such a, you get caught

and you can't stop bleeding, right? Like even small injuries like bruises like I was saying earlier, like that's still, it's inside bleeding, you know? Right. So like, he was constantly like, he was just, you know, treat. So like he was constantly like he was just you know treat like a bubble boy essentially. And the reason one of the main reasons why Rasputin became so close to you know the Zarena of which you know the wife

was because he was able to like help like heal the boy. And one of the times which I think is hilarious, he was like exiled for some reason because Rasputin was a crazy person. Another episode I'd love to talk about, but he was exiled one. Well, they believe that he was too close, right? And isn't that part of the reason? You know, they're circles. They're constituents, right? Yeah, like, but at one point, we'll get into this one day when I talk about a Rasputin, but he was out, you know, he was back at his hometown or whatever. And they teleputin, but he was out, you know, he was back at his hometown or whatever and they telegrammed him. It was like, you know, Alexi, you know, he got hurt,

he's not doing good, it looks like it's on his deathbed and everything, and he just said, tell the doctors go away and leave him alone, and he got better after that, but you know, like he, yeah. No. It was like, yeah, they think it's because the doctors were giving them aspirin because they didn't know the time that aspirin like thinned his blood. They didn't know blood. Yeah, so they were just making it worse and worse. So when he's like, yeah,

just have the doctors leave him alone. So then the doctors, it's time to give him aspirin, obviously. He can save him to recover. But I mean, that might not have won't happen. But it's still. That is one of those ironic things though, right? Of like, you know, stopping the treatment

because it's overdoing what they perceive that you needed, right? It's funny. And maybe he didn't even think of that. It was just probably like, he's like, you know, something's going on with the doctors, but yeah, anyways, my little tidbit about blood. Yes.

I wanted to think of platelets. I guess. I still find it very interesting. And it's like, obviously, one of the most vital things. And I bet give it like another 50 years, we'll have even more crazy testing and stuff like that. Well, we will take like a little drop of blood and just find out everything.

Maybe not because like statistically and stuff. But yeah. Well, you know, that's funny though, that you mentioned that because one of the shows I've watched over the last year was the story about Elizabeth Holmes. Yeah, that's why I said, that you mentioned that because one of the shows I've watched over the last year was the story about Elizabeth Holmes. Yeah, that's why I said maybe not because I did, like, look into that, we don't need to go into it, but this girl, yeah, you're talking about the girl

that had that company where they did strip tests and it was all like fake blood tests. Right, yeah, it was, well, but the thing is, is the core principle what they were trying to do originally was having blood tests. Exactly. Small mining. You can't do that.

That's the thing. Is that you need a certain amount of volume to statistically find the things you're looking for, right? You can't, like, okay, like I said, a microlear contains this much, so much red blood cells, a white blood cell, some blah, blah, blah, blah, but it might not contain the protein or the virus or whatever you're looking for, you

know, it needs a certain amount. Right, because there's only so much. Yeah, I run into that work all the time. So like, yeah, it's, you need that type of stuff. Biology needed for precision or accuracy. Yeah, you need a certain volume. Yeah, that's blood. Another daughter suggested one, by the way.

I love my daughter suggested ones. They're great. I can't wait for her to listen. Well, thank you Eliza. We definitely appreciate that. And we'd like to thank you all for joining us here, each and every week on the BrainSoda podcast. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, on Patreon, and being a Patreon can get you early access to these episodes by one week.

For Brad, I'm Kyle, and we will see you again here soon. See ya! Layer, Mo, T, Blame. Brain soda.