A pregnant woman's blood sample taken in 1972 was mysteriously missing a surface molecule found on all other known red blood cells at the time.

More than 50 years later, that strange absence finally led to researchers from the UK and Israel describing a new blood group system in humans. The team published a paper on the discovery in 2024.

"It represents a huge achievement, and the culmination of a long team effort, to finally establish this new blood group system and be able to offer the best care to rare, but important, patients," hematologist Louise Tilley from the UK National Health Service said last year, after nearly 2 decades of personally researching this bloody quirk.

Watch the video below for a summary of their research:

While we're most familiar with the ABO blood group

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