• Question: What colour are your blood cells

    Asked by 653smap49 to Sheila, Piyush, Natalia, Gary, Dimitar on 3 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Gary Munnelly

      Gary Munnelly answered on 3 Nov 2018:

      I remember some the answer to this from Secondary school, but I’m no biologist, so some of this is likely to be wrong.

      Red blood cells are red (duh)

      White blood cells are white (double duh)

      I can’t quite remember what the situation is with plasma and platelets though. Platelets turn blue when they are stained under a microscope, but that doesn’t mean the are naturally blue. Plasma is yellow, but plasma isn’t a cell. It is the fluid which holds your blood cells.

      I know that some of these colours can change too. Red blood cells are red because they contain iron and oxygen, for example, but they turn a much darker shade of red if they are deoxygenated.

      If my Secondary school biology teacher happens to be reading these, Ms? How did I do?

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