Blood, Roller Coaster Lawsuits, and Miscarriage Leave

Blood carries nourishment and oxygen throughout the body and carries away waste products. The earliest evidence in the fossil record of a blood-like substance, found in the remains of an armored arthropod, dates to at least 520 million years ago.

> In just one second, humans can produce over 2 million new red blood cells. (More)
> See why the sugars on your blood cells matter. (More)

Blood has evolved several times across the animal kingdom, giving rise to substances of different colors, compositions, and purposes. Yet not all animals require it: Some have developed alternative workarounds, including obtaining the oxygen they need from their environment.

> Jellyfish don't have blood. (More)

> See why green blood occurs. (More)

> During a 19th-century cholera outbreak, doctors tried administering milk transfusions. (More)

Human blood appears red due to its iron content, though veins appear blue because of how light and skin scatter colors. There are numerous blood types in humans, determined by the presence or absence of specific A and/or B antigens and also the presence or absence of a certain protein called the Rh factor. Different permutations of those combinations result in the eight main known blood types, though there are more than 40 human blood types overall. The eight main blood types are A, B, AB, and O, with positive and negative variations. A person's blood type determines how their immune system responds to foreign blood following a transfusion.

> Explore the eight most common blood types. (More)

> Our bone marrow generates 500 billion new blood cells daily. (More)
> Er, the 44th known blood group, can cause devastating pregnancy complications. (More)

Discover more: 

> Fewer than 50 people in the world have the "golden" blood type. (More)

> Four minutes without blood flow can cause brain damage. (More)

> Meet the newly approved robot phlebotomist. (More)
>...explore everything we've learned about Blood.

 News in Context 

1440 brings you the knowledge and context behind recent intriguing stories:

The CDC has downgraded its threshold for COVID wastewater monitoring—the primary way COVID cases are currently tracked—so levels previously counted as high may now be considered "moderate."  (More, paywall may apply)

> How does wastewater monitoring work?

> See the latest US wastewater monitoring data for COVID-19, flu, and more.

Millions of people who depend on cheap mail-order prescriptions from Canada and elsewhere may get cut off in late October due to new customs requirements. (More)

> Peptide imports from China soared in 2025, including GLP-1s. 
> Canadian drug prices are sometimes 44% lower than those in America.

New lawsuits allege X2 roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain caused severe brain injuries; the ride was closed in July 2026 amid a government investigation. (More)

> The theme park last month settled a wrongful death lawsuit from 2022 after a medical examiner concluded a 22-year-old suffered massive head and brain damage from the ride.

An FDA advisory panel recommended approving a multicancer blood test, saying early detection outweighs the risks of false positives and negatives. FDA approval could increase insurance reimbursement and availability for this prescription-only offering. (More)

> There may be more than 2 million newly diagnosed cancer cases in the US this year.

> The earliest evidence of cancer was detected in the toe of an ancient human ancestor.

Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder and convicted felon, was approved for a move to a halfway house and will be moved to one in Austin, Texas, in August 2027. (More)

> Elizabeth Holmes' massive blood-testing fraud, 101.

 Medical Developments Spotlight 

We love spending time learning about the latest medical breakthroughs and spotlighting research that piques our interest, may influence future research directions, or inform healthcare conversations. Here's what we found this week.

Stroke rates have doubled in young adults over almost three decades.

Prevention | Korin Miller. That's the conclusion from an analysis of strokes among adults aged 20-54 between 1993 and 2020. The data was gathered from a study that tracks people in the greater Cincinnati area. Many of the strokes were ischemic, meaning blood flow to the brain was blocked. Researchers are still exploring what's driving the worrisome shift. (More)

> Watch this short primer on the two main types of strokes.

Sudden infant deaths are rising among Black babies, while remaining mostly level among white babies.
CIDRAP | Meghan Holohan. Infant mortality was already known to be more than twice as high among Black children as among white children, driven largely by disparities in preterm births, but new federal data analysis indicates there's a racial gap for sudden unexpected infant deaths, too. Differences in respiratory illness incidence and access to care may be driving some of the gap. (More)

> Explore these tips for how to help grieving parents after the loss of a child or pregnancy.

Dropping all of Florida’s vaccination mandates for school entry, a move promoted by its governor and surgeon general, could risk reigniting measles transmission across the US.

PNAS | Alice Oveson and Abba B. Gumel. A mathematical model examining the effect of Florida dropping its measles vaccine requirements indicates that even small reductions in the state's childhood vaccination rates could significantly increase measles cases. Sections of the Sunshine State already have measles vaccination levels below the herd immunity threshold. (More, paywall may apply)

> See America's 2026 confirmed measles cases and the vaccination rates by state.

> What's herd immunity?

At least six babies in central Pennsylvania have been born with congenital measles amid the state's 800+ case outbreak; women cannot receive the vaccine while pregnant.​​​​​

NBC News | Staff. The state's health department says there have been more than 100 measles cases in just one week this month. The congenital cases underscore gaps in adult vaccination coverage. Congenital measles can occur when a woman is infected with measles during her final weeks of pregnancy and can result in severe complications, including encephalitis and death. (More)

> See how measles has affected humanity through the ages.

 Etcetera 

> The UK has a new miscarriage bereavement policy that goes into effect in April.

> Could epigenetic reprogramming, calorie restriction, or parabiosis extend the human healthspan?  

> Meet the sweetest artificial sweetener in the world, 300,000 times sweeter than sugar.

> Cancer treatments are increasingly targeting specific mutations, not where the tumor's found.

> People are tattooing their eyeballs to look like movie characters, including the ones from "Dune."

> Exposing people to hyperbaric oxygen therapy is under investigation as a long COVID therapy.

> The Jehovah's Witnesses leadership this month said its members can receive transfusions of blood components, but still no whole blood transfusions.
 

> How we interpret setbacks can help protect us against learned helplessness.

> Chemical hair straighteners helped generate Black wealth, but these commonly used products are increasingly linked to harm.
 

> Meditation is America's most popular complementary health approach.

> Stevia has a long history of being used to treat burns and indigestion.

> More than 5 million Americans have more than one autoimmune disease.