Too Much Blood Trivia Quiz

Answer: Air

The concept of "humors" (from the Greek "chymos" meaning juice or sap) has its roots in Ancient Egypt, but it was Croten, a Greek, who documented the Humor theory. His list of humors was extensive and included the fundamental elements described by Empedocles (air, water, fire and earth). Hippocrates took this body of work and applied it to medicine and suggested that humors were actual vital bodily fluids: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. These fluids, when in a state of equilibrium or correct proportion, constituted health. When they were disproportionate and out of balance, pain and disease occurred. These theories, with modifications, were believed to be true until the 16th century.

Subsequently, Galen of Pergamum declared blood to be the most prevalent humor and introduced bloodletting techniques to rebalance the humors in certain diseases.

Robin Fahrĉus was a Swedish physician who, in the 19th century, suggested the four humours were based upon the clotting of blood in a transparent container. When undisturbed, blood will settle into four distinct layers. A dark clot will form at the bottom (the "black bile"). Above the clot is a large layer of red blood cells (the "blood"), followed by a very thin, lighter layer of white blood cells (the "phlegm"). The topmost layer is large and is (yellow) serum (the "yellow bile").

Answer: For the life of the flesh is in the blood

Leviticus 17:11 (KJV) states (in full) "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." This was the only biblical reference among the answer options.

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church". Tertullian
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat". Winston Churchill
"Be assured that there is no sin you have ever committed that the blood of Jesus Christ cannot cleanse". Billy Graham

Blood contains remarkable symbolic power in both Judaism and Christianity as the blood of sacrifice, of Jesus, and of the Jewish martyrs, among others. However, as they share the same literary, cultural, and religious origins through the Hebrew bible, blood as a symbol has followed very different trajectories within each religion.

In Judaism, blood is considered sacred and associated with life, but it is also associated with impurity, and this informs kosher dietary practices.

In Christianity, the blood of Jesus Christ is essential to the concept of atonement and salvation. It is represented in the Eucharist or communion, but even within context, the role of blood and its symbolism is fundamentally different between Catholicism and Protestantism.

The role of blood in Judaism and Christianity (and other religions) is complex. Suffice to say that blood represents a fundamental connection between man and God.

Answer: Blood is pumped around the entire body in a rapid manner

It is important to note that Harvey published his findings in 1628 (in Latin) and an English version in 1653, but his findings date back to 1618-1619. What is remarkable is that capillaries were not known at the time and were not discovered until later in the 16th century, when the microscope had been invented. Also, oxygen was not discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley (independently) until 1774, so it was not known in Harvey's time that blood was primarily a gas carrier.

Harvey's discovery about blood circulation was due to venous valves. These were small flaps inside the veins that allowed free passage of blood in one direction but stopped the flow of blood in the opposite direction. These flaps prevented blood pooling due to the influence of gravity. However, Harvey was able to show that all these flaps are cardio-centrically oriented. This meant the valves were not present to resist the effects of gravity. For example, he demonstrated that the valves in the jugular vein of the neck faced downward, which inhibited blood flow away from the heart, instead of facing upward, to inhibit pooling due to gravity.

Answer: Austria and Latvia

The Austrian flag can be traced back to the coat of arms of the Babenberg dynasty, a silver band on a red field. It is unclear when the coat of arms was transferred into the national flag, but it was sometime between 1095 and 1260. This makes the Austrian flag one of the oldest in the world today. However, legend states Duke Leopold V of Austria invented the flag after he fought in the Siege of Acre. His outer coat was completely covered in blood, but when he removed his belt, the revealed cloth was not stained, revealing a red-white-red combination. This then, became the design of the national flag (according to legend).

The Latvian flag has a similar legend. It too is one of the oldest national flags. The Latvian period from 1180 to 1343 is documented in the "Rhymed Chronicle of Livonia" (Livlandische Reimchronik), which describes a battle that took place about 1279, in which tribes from Cesis, in northern modern-day Latvia, went to battle carrying a "red flag with a white stripe". However, a separate account describes the mortally wounded Latgalian (Latvian) chief who was wrapped in a white sheet. Where he was lying was white, but the rest of the sheet was covered with his blood. In the next battle, the sheet was used as a flag. As the Latgalians were successful in driving the enemy away, these colours were retained as their banner.

The photo depicts the Latvian National Library in Riga.

Answer: Hot-Blooded

"Hot-blooded" is an idiom that translates as someone who is easily excited, passionate, and inclined to have strong emotions, especially anger or love. This is exactly what this Foreigner song is about. Robert Hilburn, a "Los Angeles Times" critic, described the song as "a macho-ish reflection of a rock star's seductive intent." It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" refers to a protest march in Derry, Northern Ireland, where 13 protesters were killed by members of the British army, Special Forces Support Group in 1971. The killing was quickly dubbed "Bloody Sunday". John Lennon wrote a song, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971) as an angry response to the massacre.

U2 had one of their biggest hits with a song of the same name in 1983. Their song, a different song to Lennon's, was not specifically about the incident in Derry in 1971, but the lyrics also refer to the Sunday Bloody Sunday disaster in Dublin in November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. The U2 version went to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

"Only Women Bleed" is a 1975 ballad about a woman in an abusive relationship who is subjected to domestic violence. The biggest surprise was that it was sung by shock rocker Alice Cooper. The song was one of his biggest hits, reaching number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100.

The photo depicts the United Nations building in New York City, where many foreign nationals work.

Answer: Water

"You can't get blood out of a stone" is an Old English proverb that was first recorded by Vicesimus Knox, in 1788, in a collection of letters called "Winter Evenings": "They must have had abilities inherent in them or they could not have been excited, according to that common observation, that it is impossible to get blood out of a stone".

However, an Italian author, Giovanni Torriano, wrote several books between 1650-1670 to assist in English-Italian translation. He wrote "Piazza Universale di Proverbi Italiani" in 1662, stating "There's no getting of bloud out of that wall". Also in 1662 he wrote "Second Alphabet of Proverbial Phrases, where it is documented: "To go about to fetch bloud out of a turnip". Of the three items "turnip" is used in the idiom in the US most frequently, whereas in the UK "stone" is the more popular choice.

A very well-known idiom connecting "blood' and "water" is: "Blood is thicker than water", meaning that familial bonds will always be stronger than any other relationship.. However, the original context of this idiom was about the strength of the shared experience between soldiers who have shed their blood together. By this act (of spilling blood), a covenant was created to represent the bond created by combined hardship and sacrifice. This covenant was considered stronger than the bond of birth or, specifically, the water of the womb.

The photo depicts the crucifixion of Christ as painted by Andreas Pavias. John 19:34 states, "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water." This description is considered a sign of his death and is often interpreted as a symbolic representation of the Church (water) and the sacrifice of Jesus (blood). However, in a scientific context, it explains how Jesus was dead at the time of the 'spear-pricking' as his blood had already started to settle into its components of blood cells and plasma (water).

Answer: A lunar eclipse

A blood moon is an astronomical event where the Earth comes between the Moon and the Sun, causing the Moon to be in shadow and become much darker. A deep eclipse occurs when the Moon is totally eclipsed by the Earth, which causes it to take on a reddish colour. Because Earth has completely blocked the moon from receiving direct sunlight, the only light reflected from the Moon's surface is the light that has been refracted by the Earth's atmosphere.

A phenomenon called Rayleigh's Scattering of Blue Light causes this light to be reddish in colour - hence, blood moon. It is the same reason why there are orange colours in sunrises and sunsets.

Answer: Jan Swammerdam

The invention of the compound microscope in Holland was credited to Hans and Zacharias Jannsen around 1590. However, Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) was the first person to observe red blood cells (described as "red corpuscles) under the microscope. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), the Father of Microscopy, due to his descriptions of microscopic cells, was the first person to illustrate red blood cells in 1695. It took another 150 years of examining blood microscopically for someone to describe other blood components besides 'red corpuscles".

William Addison (1802-1881), an English physician and Gabriel Andral (1797-1876), a French professor of medicine, simultaneously but working separately, described the first descriptions of white blood cells (Leucocytes) in 1843 and both correctly deduced that leucocytes were altered in disease. Further, Addison also deduced that pus cells were blood leucocytes that had passed from capillary vessels into other cells outside the circulatory system.

Alfred Donné (1801-1878) was a French physician who, in 1842, discovered a third element, the platelets (the clotting factor cells), in blood.

By the mid-1800s, the foundations of a new field in medicine, hematology, had been established.

Answer: False

Nearly every vertebrate (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish) has red blood cells due to a protein called hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to cells. This bright red colour (arterial blood) turns a darker burgundy colour when the hemoglobin releases the O2 at the cellular level and returns to the heart via veins as deoxygenated blood.

Invertebrates such as spiders, octopuses, and crabs use hemocyanin, an oxygen-carrying protein containing copper, to carry oxygen to the cells. They therefore have blue blood due to the copper content of the oxygen-carrying protein.

Animals that utilise hemerythrin as the oxygen carrier have purple blood when blood is oxygenated. Sea cucumbers, sea squirts and peanut worms have purple blood.

Some segmented worms and leeches have green blood due to an oxygen-carrying molecule such as chlorocruorin.

Some fish that live in very cold environments have colourless blood as they do not need hemoglobin or any oxygen-carrying protein, as there is enough oxygen available in their environment.

The photo depicts the underside of the crab species Cancer productus. The blue colour of haemocyanin from its open circulatory system is clearly visible.

Answer: Erythrocytes can contain A or B antigens

By the turn of the 20th century, it was known that, sometimes but not always, when blood was transfused from one person into another, erythrocytes could agglutinate (stick together), causing dire consequences in some cases.
In 1901, Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner published his discovery of the human ABO blood group system. He stated that erythrocytes contain antigens A, B and C (later changed to O). Erythrocytes could contain either an A antigen (Blood group A), a B Antigen (Blood group B), both antigens (Blood group AB) or neither A nor B antigen (Blood group O). Further, it was discovered that you had antibodies in the plasma to antigens not expressed on erythrocytes. This means if you are blood group A, you have B antibodies in your plasma; if you are blood group O, you have both anti-A and anti-B; if you are blood group AB, you have no A or B antibodies in your blood.

With the genetics of blood, you get one genetic allele from each parent with A and B antigens more dominant than O. Therefore, a person with one parent A and the other is B, the person is likely to be blood group AB. (Though without knowing their parents' genotypes, they could be other blood types as well.).

In 1940, Landsteiner, with American geneticist Alexander Wiener, discovered the other major antigen "D", which was found in their experiments in which blood from rhesus monkeys was injected into rabbits. A person who has the D antigen is considered Rh+. About 80% of Caucasians are RH+. In Caucasians, about 80% are either O+ or A+. AB - is the rarest type, with less than 2% having this blood group. Before blood can be transfused, it is important to match blood type to blood type. Normally, the patient's serum will be mixed with erythrocytes of the same type of donor blood to see if there is any agglutination due to other antigens expressed on the donor erythrocytes. This is called a crossmatch. If a blood transfusion is to be given immediately, O- blood is given as these erythrocytes will not carry any A, B or D antigens (This blood group is considered the universal donor type, whereas Group AB people are universal recipients).