41–50 of 76 posts
The OP is low on details. There is more in this article (in french): https://www.lindependant.fr/2025/06/21/il-ny-a-quelle-qui-es... Apparently the ISBT have added this to their list: https://www.isbtweb.org/isbt-working-parties/rcibgt.html (the page still says 47 but the data tables have it added)
@dang should change the OP, entrevue is really a poor website (think tmz)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are 48 blood type systems , of which ABO (giving A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+/-) can be combined to form the 8 common types. There are effectively millions of types because all the systems combined combinatorially, but most antigens beyond ABO and Rh don't cause that much of an issue, so in emergency cases, they just go with them.
Why are A and B considered to belong to the same "system"? They combine with each other combinatorially in exactly the same way that rhesus factor combines with them, and presumably the same way that all other systems combine with all other systems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are 48 blood type systems , of which ABO (giving A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+/-) can be combined to form the 8 common types. There are effectively millions of types because all the systems combined combinatorially, but most antigens beyond ABO and Rh don't cause that much of an issue, so in emergency cases, they just go with them.
Why are A and B considered to belong to the same "system"? They combine with each other combinatorially in exactly the same way that rhesus factor combines with them, and presumably the same way that all other systems combine with all other systems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are 48 blood type systems , of which ABO (giving A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+/-) can be combined to form the 8 common types. There are effectively millions of types because all the systems combined combinatorially, but most antigens beyond ABO and Rh don't cause that much of an issue, so in emergency cases, they just go with them.
Why are A and B considered to belong to the same "system"? They combine with each other combinatorially in exactly the same way that rhesus factor combines with them, and presumably the same way that all other systems combine with all other systems.
My clearly incorrect understanding was that there are ~8 blood types. So reading that there are 48 is shocking.
There are 48 blood type systems , of which ABO (giving A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+/-) can be combined to form the 8 common types. There are effectively millions of types because all the systems combined combinatorially, but most antigens beyond ABO and Rh don't cause that much of an issue, so in emergency cases, they just go with them.
> It's complicated.
> There are more than 35 red blood cell groups (see https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/blood-typ... for a nice writeup). For each of those blood groups, there is more than one possible configuration of some protein or carbohydrate (something like more than one possible genetic sequence leading to more than one kind of molecule on the surface of the RBCs).
> And, even with ABO, there can be infrequent variations that make things more complicated (see https://professionaleducation.blood.ca/en/transfusion/best-p... for more).
> For the other blood groups, I think every case the groups were identified because a patient somewhere made an antibody, causing either a transfusion reaction (if not tested ahead of time) or, more likely, a positive (incompatible) reaction on in compatibility testing.
> [...]
It's worth reading the full original comment because it has more interesting details https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33507052
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's where correlations of random events and placebo end and where discovery begins. There are 'gods' that are 'better' than others. Even if the principle of what you/people believe goes against what you find scientifically relevent, or factual, or sensible. There still is something to be said about a group of people following a strange set of rules that could be demonstrably better than other sets of rules and bel…
> There are 'gods' that are 'better' than others I don’t think that’s valid. Gods usually come with a set of values or a specific worldview, and these are inherently subjective. You can’t really rank them as "better" or "worse" in any meaningful way. Let’s take an example: imagine I believe in a paperclip-god. The core value here is producing as many paperclips as possible, and I’d argue that anything that doesn’t se…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's where correlations of random events and placebo end and where discovery begins. There are 'gods' that are 'better' than others. Even if the principle of what you/people believe goes against what you find scientifically relevent, or factual, or sensible. There still is something to be said about a group of people following a strange set of rules that could be demonstrably better than other sets of rules and bel…
Religions compete by "virality", like viruses they evolve towards encouraging reproduction. Even if you measure "better" as "more viral" - it's not "gods" who are better - it's cultural memes (for example there's 1000 versions of christianity believing in the same gods with vastly different cultures and virality outcomes).
Its true that many things co-evolved with us, like viruses and blood types(yes, we're somewhat on topic again) and even though we share many similar characteristics, like blood type, mayor, minor. Its also true that discovery of new things doesn't always invalidate the old way of thinking. Usuallyit just adds to what has already been existing. Like how multicellular life is a true breeding ground for single celled organism.
Similarly, the ABO+- blood type system was good enough to not kill patients, which is quite the improvement. Though only a fool would treat that system as gospel and align personalities with it. Now we're classifying the minor types and we're getting closer to rediscovering the uniqueness of everyones blood just as everyones beliefs,god or no god, is unique if you are willing to look.
I know that HN is not very appreciative of religion or god. I'd just like to change someones perspective on that as we've all evolved from very humble beginnings, both in our personal lives and as the silly monkeys we all still sometimes are. I definitely wouldn't want our economy to become a paperclip maximiser but any perceived missteps should be dissected with a good blogpost on how we got here in the first place.
The OP is low on details. There is more in this article (in french): https://www.lindependant.fr/2025/06/21/il-ny-a-quelle-qui-es... Apparently the ISBT have added this to their list: https://www.isbtweb.org/isbt-working-parties/rcibgt.html (the page still says 47 but the data tables have it added)
Neither article talks about whether this is a minor or a major antigen. Blood for transfusion needs to be crossmatched against antigen types of the recipient. Many patients will tolerate several transfusions of a minor mismatched antigen before developing a sensitivity. Major antigens are what cause significant reactions that can be life-threatening. Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for infants and pr…
I’m reminded of that American high schooler in Uganda running an orphanage and ran into this exact issue when doing a transfusion on a malnourished infant. [1]
She was skilled enough to perform a transfusion and knowledgeable enough to test for a ABO+/- match but not so knowledgeable as to be sensitive to this issue with disastrous results.
On the other hand her clinics metrics were on par or slightly above the local hospitals so it’s not clear to me they would have faired better getting care elsewhere there.
[1] https://stories.showmax.com/za/hbos-docuseries-savior-comple...