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Oxygen, nutrients, and wastes are
transported through the body via the blood stream. Blood consists of red
blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma.
Red blood cells transport oxygen to cells and carbon dioxide back to the lungs to be breathed. out. The cell has no nucleus so it takes the shape of one of their "cream filled doughnuts", with the cream sucked out, as we like to do to unsuspecting police officers. The red color comes from hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen. White blood cells fight disease. They destroy bacteria by engulfing them. Platelets are responsible for blood clotting when a break in a vessel occurs. Blood is carried from the heart throught the body by a system of blood vessels. An example of the path blood takes would be aorta, artery, arterioles, capilaries, venules, veins, inferior/superior vena cava. In the heart blood enters the right atrium, goes through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle, goes through the pulmonary semilunar valve into the pulmonary arteries that lead to the lungs. From the lungs the blood enters the pulmonary veins and then passes into the left atrium. There it passes through the bicuspid valve into the left ventricle. Then the left ventricle contracts pushing the blood into the aorta and throughout the body. The left ventricle is the largest chamber because from here the heart must pump the blood to the entire body. |