Useful information about Blood

The circulatory system is the route by which the cells in your body get the oxygen and nutrients they need, but blood is the actual carrier of the oxygen and nutrients. Blood is made mostly of plasma, which is a yellowish liquid that is 90% water. But in addition to the water, plasma contains salts, sugar (glucose), and other substances. And, most important, plasma contains proteins that carry important nutrients to the body’s cells and strengthen the body’s immune system so it can fight off infection.
The average man has between 10 and 12 pints of blood in his body. The average woman has between 8 and 9 pints. To give you an idea of how much blood that is, 8 pints is equal to 1 gallon (think of a gallon of milk).

What is blood?
Blood is actually a tissue. It is thick because it is made up of a variety of cells, each having a different job. In fact, blood is actually about 80% water and 20% solid.

We know that blood is made mostly of plasma. But there are 3 main types of blood cells that circulate with the plasma:

• Platelets, which help the blood to clot. Clotting stops the blood from flowing out of the body when a vein or artery is broken. Platelets are also called thrombocytes.
• Red blood cells, which carry oxygen. Of the 3 types of blood cells, red blood cells are the most plentiful. In fact, a healthy adult has about 35 trillion of them. The body creates these cells at a rate of about 2.4 million a second, and they each have a life span of about 120 days. Red blood cells are also called erythrocytes.
• White blood cells, which ward off infection. These cells, which come in many shapes and sizes, are vital to the immune system. When the body is fighting off infection, it makes them in ever-increasing numbers. Still, compared to the number of red blood cells in the body, the number of white blood cells is low. Most healthy adults have about 700 times as many red blood cells as white ones. White blood cells are also called leukocytes.

Blood also contains hormones, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and gases.

What does blood do?
Blood carries oxygen from the lungs and nutrients from the digestive tract to the body’s cells. It also carries away carbon dioxide and all of  the waste products that the body does not need. (The kidneys filter and clean the blood.) Blood also

• Helps keep your body at the right temperature
• Carries hormones to the body’s cells
• Sends antibodies to fight infection
• Contains clotting factors to help the blood to clot and the body’s tissues to heal

Blood types
There are 4 different blood types: A, B, AB, and O. Genes that you inherit from your parents (1 from your mother and 1 from your father) determine your blood type.

Blood is always being made by the cells inside your bones, so your body can usually replace any blood lost through small cuts or wounds. But when a lot of blood is lost through large wounds, it has to be replaced through a blood transfusion (blood donated by other people). In blood transfusions, the donor and recipient blood types must be compatible. People with type O blood are called universal donors, because they can donate blood to anyone, but they can only receive a transfusion from other people with type O blood.

The most commonly used letter in the English alphabet is “E”

The most commonly used letter in the English language is the letter “E”. This is the case in the general language, in fiction and non-fiction writings, journalism, religious works like the Bible, and even in Morse code. The most common consonant in the English language is “T”.

With “E” being so common in the English language, one would think that it would start the most words. Actually “T” begins the most words, followed by “O”. “E” is the letter which most commonly occurs third in a word, and is the third most common second letter in a word. The most common second letter in a word in the English language is h.

Actually, “E” is far down the list of English language word beginners, and comes in at the 15th place. The five most common letters beginning words are “T”, “O”, “A”, “W” and “B”.

Approximately half of the words in the English language end with the letters “E”, “T”, “D” and “S” with the greatest share of words ending in “E”. Further, there are four letters most likely to follow “E" in a word. These are “R”, “S”, “N” and “D”.

Ironically, of the most common words with two letters in the English language, only three words actually have an “E”. They are"'be", "we", and "me". As well, in the top twenty most frequently written English language words, only three words have an “E”. These are “the”, the most frequently used word in the English language, and “he” and “be.” However, when one analyzes most frequently used three-letter words, “E” gets a fairer share.

When teaching children spelling, it can be fun to play a game with them, where one says only words that do not contain an “E”. It is pretty difficult to get through more than a few sentences without a slip. The “E” is fairly indispensable.

For example, this article alone contains 193 of them. I have also used the most common diphthong “th” 63 times, and the most common consonant “T” 151 times.

More specifically, there's a 12.7% chance that a given letter is an "E". There's a 9% chance that it's a "T" and an 8.1% chance that it's an "A". For comparison, the chances that a given letter is a "Z" is only 0.074%. See how the rest of the letters match up with this chart.

    Letter- Relative Frequency (%)

1. a -  8.167
2. b -  1.492
3. c -  2.782
4. d -  4.253
5. e -  12.702
6. f  -  2.228
7. g -  2.015
8. h -  6.094
9. i  -  6.966
10. j  -  0.153
11. k -  0.772
12. l  -  4.025
13. m-  2.406
14. n -  6.749
15. o -  7.507
16. p -  1.929
17. q -  0.095
18. r -  5.987
19. s -  6.327
20. t  - 9.056
21. u -  2.758
22. v -  0.978
23. w - 2.360
24. x -  0.150
25. y -  1.974
26. z -  0.074