An audience member asked Isaac Asimov, “How could you let
Hollywood make such a lousy movie out of Fantastic Voyage–one of
your best books?” Isaac said the guy had it backwards — he’d
made a good book have a lousy movie. Decades later, we are stuck
with the images of that film. We are still visualizing devices
making their way through the circulatory system to zap blood
clots or cancer cells. But blood and the circulatory system are
more than a means to reaching different points in the body. For
me, Asimov’s descriptions of the immune system at work and his
explanations the other fascinating qualities of blood remain in
my imagination more than Raquel Welch in a submarine. Last time,
I talked about the underappreciated possibilities of skin for
human enhancement. Blood is similarly undervalued. Think of the
many roles of blood and your circulatory system: - Red blood
cells provide oxygen to and remove carbon dioxide from every
living cell in your body. - Platelets assist in the delivery of
hormones and in hea