Researchers Discover A Surprising New Role for Lungs: Making Blood (ucsf.edu)

schwit1 quotes ScienceAlert: In experiments involving mice, the team found that lungs produce more than 10 million platelets (tiny blood cells) per hour, equating to the majority of platelets in the animals' circulation. This goes against the decades-long assumption that bone marrow produces all of our blood components. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco also discovered a previously unknown pool of blood stem cells that makes this happen inside the lung tissue -- cells that were incorrectly assumed to mainly reside in bone marrow. "This finding definitely suggests a more sophisticated view of the lungs -- that they're not just for respiration, but also a key partner in formation of crucial aspects of the blood," says one of the researchers, Mark R. Looney.
The platelet-producing cells actually migrate from the bone marrow to the lungs.

Comments

Re:I Wonder

[slew]

I wonder if this is where HIV hides when people who are HIV+ are on meds and the virus is undetectable. I don't really know anything, but it was my first thought.

FWIW, researcher have already discovered that HIV hides in the lymph nodes... But nice try.

Re:Humbling

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, duh.
Certain Platelets, and certain types of T-Cells, have long been known as originating in the Differentiating Cells in the Lungs. (The Differentiating bit pretty much explains Lung Cancer, when it goes wrong.) I learned of this some three decades back.
Just why is this now News?
(Excuse my English. Is "Differentiating" not the right word?)

From 2000

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1850212/

Re:Don't smoke

[Anonymous Coward]

Weed is very healthy, tobacco is not.