Scientists have developed a way of assessing the ability of red blood cells to deliver oxygen by measuring their shape. This test could improve specialist transplant and transfusion practice as well ...

The biconcave disk shape and deformability of mammalian red blood cells (RBCs) rely upon the membrane skeleton, a viscoelastic network of short actin filaments interconnected by long spectrin ...

Red blood cells for example, have no nucleus, so they can hold more oxygen. They're also biconcave or disc-shaped to absorb oxygen more quickly and rounded to flow easily through tiny capillaries.