Last week, I was helping my niece with her English homework. We were working on an exercise where you have to complete the sentence with the missing verb. It inspired me to try a little “fill-in-the-blanks” with you guys.

I picked up this peripheral blood film, and it looked quite “gritty” and abnormal before I even put it under the microscope.

Once I focused the lens, I immediately exclaimed:

“This blood sample needs to be __ before making the film!”

What is the missing verb? What physiological phenomenon are we seeing in this film?