Purpose of Appendix Believed Found

CambodiaSam sent in this story, which opens: "Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week. For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function. Surgeons removed them routinely. People live fine without them. The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most are good and help digest food. But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case."

Comments

Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[eldavojohn]

I have studied little biology or medical subjects though I've read studies about this same sort of thing happening with asthma, polio & allergies. I think I've posted about this before but anecdotally I noticed there were no farmers who had allergies or asthma as I grew up and worked on farms with them. The young kids would play in hay and run around in the mud outside when it rained. So it seems that a problem with being an overly hygienic society today (as the article notes) is that we don't expose our young to these pathogens early on so they never adapt to them and suffer exposure to them later. This is why I recommend against anyone installing an air purifier in their home. It's a great idea--if you never plan on leaving your home.

I can't find the research but I thought a long time ago that a German study was done to find out why polio was "a middle class disease." If I recall they found that poor children were exposed to it since birth and rarely suffered from it since they were exposed to it always. The middle class children would be protected as infants but once exposed to it, their bodies would not be able to fight it. The upper class would take all costs to reduce exposure to it at all times--and they could.

Now this research is interestingly related in that appendicitis may be something that occurs due to our lack of exposure to diseases that destroy all the germs in our body (cholera & certain types of dysentery). Should something happen that would threaten this, our bodies respond poorly to it and the appendix flares up. As this article notes, appendicitis occurs less frequently in underdeveloped countries. Perhaps this is more reinforcement for the idea that protecting your children from germs is a double edged sword.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[paleo2002]

I have studied (some) biology, especially from an evolutionary perspective. There are aspects of our immune system that deal with macroscopic threats - parasites, foreign bodies, etc. In modern, industrialized society intestinal parasites and unremoved splinters aren't really a problem so a part of our immune system is left with very little to do. Like a bored child or pet, our immune system goes looking for something to do. It overreacts to pollen, proteins in common foods, and animal dander.

With the proliferation of antibacterial products, I worry about two things. In the short term, what kind of new allergies will people develop as chemistry continues to replace people's immune systems? In the long term, what kind of backlash are we going to see when microbes begin to develop some sort of resistance to alcohol and other antibacterial agents?

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[eldavojohn]

With the proliferation of antibacterial products, I worry about two things. In the short term, what kind of new allergies will people develop as chemistry continues to replace people's immune systems? In the long term, what kind of backlash are we going to see when microbes begin to develop some sort of resistance to alcohol and other antibacterial agents? Precisely the idea behind a story I submitted a while ago cautioning the use of antibacterial soap--especially since the truth is it does little or nothing more than regular soap.

I could spout more of my fears of an overly medicated, overly hygienic society but my neck is really sore from the tinfoil fortress atop my head. :-) Well, at least I still have my freedom of choice not to take Tylenol when I have a headache, a glass of scotch usually fixes it better anyways.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[NotoriousHood]

I was also worried about bacteria adapting to alcohol etc.

From my research and discussions with doctors etc I've come to learn that bacteria adapt to antibiotics because these agents are very precise and destroy a very narrow type of microorganism, whereas alcohol, chlorine bleach, and all other cleaning agents wipe everything out. There has been no (to my knowledge) increase in resistance to bleach used in the kitchen for instance. It would be like gaining resistance to fire. The properties of these antibacterial agents is just too violent against the cell for evolution to do anything about it.

I'm sure this could have been said better, but basically antibacterial soap will not create super-deadly strains of bacteria, whereas continued use of antibiotics has and will.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

>> but anecdotally I noticed there were no farmers who had allergies or asthma as I grew up and worked on farms with them. The young kids would play in hay and run around in the mud outside when it rained.

It may be a mixture of genetics and "survival of the fittest" - most allergies are inheritable (many are only inheritable), and as you can imagine, someone who suffers from various environmental allergies would not want/be able to stay in the environment that makes them suffer.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up on a farm. My cousin lived right next to us, but not on a farm. His grandfather was a farmer and his parents also kept horses. He did not grow up in a sterile environment any more than I did. He had asthma. No one in my family did.

No one in my family smoked (well, my father quit once he started having kids). My cousin's parents smoked.

Just more anecdotal worthless evidence.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[tomhudson]

> "I was also worried about bacteria adapting to alcohol etc. "

... they do ... where do you think all those ugly bacteria come from? Bacteria in bars, seeing other bacteria through beer-bottle goggles, breeding, then trying to gnaw their cilia off the next morning because their mate is coyote-ugly ...

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[eldavojohn]

Just more anecdotal worthless evidence. Oh, thank you sir! I now have ... let's see here, one ... two ... TWO data points to build my research around. Things are going swimmingly.

I'll be taking the well known "global warming" approach where I already know what is going to prove with my research so your data point will have to be either an anomaly or possibly tweaked. I may have to remove a word from your testimony and replace "not" with "..." but I do thank you. I am well on my way of utilizing the corporate scientific method!

1. Conduct 'research' proving people should not protect their children from dust and viruses.
2. Patent dust/virus concoctions in spray bottle to be applied daily to humans in the pupae stage.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!! (Virodust® bottle sales, maybe hospital kickbacks?)

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[king-manic]

I have studied little biology or medical subjects though I've read studies about this same sort of thing happening with asthma, polio & allergies. I think I've posted about this before but anecdotally I noticed there were no farmers who had allergies or asthma as I grew up and worked on farms with them. The young kids would play in hay and run around in the mud outside when it rained. So it seems that a problem with being an overly hygienic society today (as the article notes) is that we don't expose our young to these pathogens early on so they never adapt to them and suffer exposure to them later. This is why I recommend against anyone installing an air purifier in their home. It's a great idea--if you never plan on leaving your home.

I can't find the research but I thought a long time ago that a German study was done to find out why polio was "a middle class disease." If I recall they found that poor children were exposed to it since birth and rarely suffered from it since they were exposed to it always. The middle class children would be protected as infants but once exposed to it, their bodies would not be able to fight it. The upper class would take all costs to reduce exposure to it at all times--and they could.

Now this research is interestingly related in that appendicitis may be something that occurs due to our lack of exposure to diseases that destroy all the germs in our body (cholera & certain types of dysentery). Should something happen that would threaten this, our bodies respond poorly to it and the appendix flares up. As this article notes, appendicitis occurs less frequently in underdeveloped countries. Perhaps this is more reinforcement for the idea that protecting your children from germs is a double edged sword.

The other way to interpret it is that people with severe allergies and who would suffer from polio are exposed to it early and die. As most of the groups outlined have higher infant mortality. It may not be a full explanation but it's certainly a contributing factor. From a evolutionary standpoint those who would have died from allergies/polio/germs due to a weaker system survive in "middle class" society and thus what is rare among the lower class amplifies overtime in the middle class until it reaches soem steady state %.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[wikinerd]

So it seems that a problem with being an overly hygienic society today ... we don't expose our young to these pathogens early on so they never adapt to them and suffer exposure to them later

That's true - and I believe that in the future (rich) people will be paying for training their immune systems, just like they do now by paying for going to the gym,

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[JanneM]

It's a little trickier than that. It is clear life in general is very good at adapting to just about anything; there's been experiments done where microorganisms have ben pressured to adapt to conditions no less bad than bleach. But a lot of people forget that most adaptations also have negative effects. And if the bad condition is rare enough then it may simply not be worth it, evolutionary speaking, to adapt to it.

There's a beetle on the British isles that lays its eggs in shallow water. So the female flies around, looking for small water collections (small lakes, ponds, that sort of thing) in which to lay her eggs. But her detection system is simplistic, mainly looking for ground surfaces of a certain size that polarize light. And that includes stuff like wet asphalt and newly washed cars. So there's a lot of beetles diving right into newly clean cars, making a mess at the very least opportune moment.

But even without cars and asphalt, it's pretty clear her detection system is on the rough side. The reason they don't have better "pond detectors" is most likely that the current one is good enough; a lot of the beetles do hit good water, and a more complex system would penalize the individuals with it (in energy and development time as juveniles if nothing else) more than they'd gain by being more precise with their egg-laying attempts.

Similarly, from a bacterias point of view, a disinfected surface is rare - really rare. Any adaptation to in with even a slightly negative side effect is likely to disappear unless the individuals and their offspring can rely on staying in that environment for a long time, making it a separate niche. Which they can't since a disinfected surface normally doesn't stay that way. There is no long-term survival benefit in being good at surviving that environment.

This is why cutting down on antibiotic use would not just slow down resistance, but can actually reverse it. Make the antibiotic rare enough and resistance genes won't remain.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Sosarian]

Your allergy comments are interesting, but polio is still with us ravaging people in some of the poorest places in the world.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[tmosley]

Bacteria can't develop resistance to alcohol without becoming something other than bacteria. If they could, humanity would never have become civilized. Much of the problem with living together in large communities is finding clean water. The easiest way to turn infested water into something you can drink is by fermenting it into an alcoholic beverage. Other antibiotics are more prone to causing immunity, as they attack specific proteins and such, tearing the membrane open. Ethanol just penetrates the membrane and changes the characteristics of the cellular medium, killing the cell.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Voltageaav]

They already have allergy treatments. Basically, they give you a shot every few months. Now they're just waiting for the technology that allows you to work out in your sleep.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[nwbvt]

Except more people in the world die of germs than they do of things like appendicitis. In those underdeveloped countries you mention, its not uncommon for people to die of those diseases we are sheltered against. The concept of the vast majority of children surviving into and beyond adulthood is a rather new one and pretty much only present in developed countries.

Yes, there may be some negatives from living a life sheltered from disease, but the net benefit is obviously good.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Original Replica]

Oh, thank you sir! I now have ... let's see here, one ... two ... TWO data points to build my research around.

No you now have an additional piece of evidence that don't fit nicely with your earlier hypothesis. It also suggests that airborne pollutants like smoke might weigh more heavily in asthma than kids being exposed to germs. Just because the GP offers something that doesn't whole heartedly support your +5 theory doesn't mean you have to turn into a snarky jackass.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Lurker2288]

It's more a function of the fact that antibiotics attack a very definite metabolic activity that's vital for the bacterium to survive. The beta-lactams (think penicillin) interfere with the production of the peptidoglycan cell wall, whereas others interfere with bacterial protein synthesis. So, if the cell can come up with something to negate this attack (pumping the antibiotic out before it can do any damage, producing a protein that neutralizes the antibiotic) then it becomes resistant. On the contrary, something like bleach or alcohol massively disrupts the cell and kills it in a variety of ways all at once.

I like your fire analogy, though. Very apt.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[E 99]

I think that depends. If bacterial resistance to antibiotics amounted simply to some one-time mutation of a protein into a new form, I don't see any reason to suspect that that is going to mutate back. OTOH, if the resistance required a configuration with lower entropy than the non-resistance, like say a NEW protein that must be manufactured, then that would be expected to reverse itself if no longer needed.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[scottv67]

I think I've posted about this before but anecdotally I noticed there were no farmers who had allergies or asthma as I grew up and worked on farms with them.

I think you may have it backwards: You are saying that there are no farmers with asthma because working on a farm prevents asthma. It's more likely that there are no farmers with asthma because people with asthma do not become farmers. Even though I (someone who has had asthma my entire life) have helped bale hay, milk cows and shovel manure, there is no way that I would *think* of becoming a farmer. Wearing a dust mask while baling hay or doing other chores on the farm is no fun. Being in the barn without some sort of mask is a surefire recipe for having a meeting with Mr. Albuterol later in the day.

I could come-up with a parallel to your "I've never known farmers with asthma" story by saying "I've never seen a one-armed crab fisherman on the Discovery TV show "Deadliest Catch". I could infer from watch the Deadliest Catch that crab fishing must be a pretty safe line of work because there are no one-armed guys working the crab pots. The reality is there are no one-armed crab fisherman because the one-armed guys do not sign-up for a job that they know would be extremely hazardous for them to do with just one arm.

This is why I recommend against anyone installing an air purifier in their home. It's a great idea--if you never plan on leaving your home.

I'm sorry, I didn't catch the name of the medical school you graduated from or where you did your residency in allergy/asthma. Could you post that information one more time? I have an IQAir HealthPro Plus http://www.iqair.us/residential/roomairpurifiers/healthproplus.php that runs in my bedroom every night. That air purifier filters the dust, pollen and other allergens out of air inside my house so that I can breathe more easily - especially during the spring and fall when thing like tree pollen, ragweed and alternaria are bad. The indoor air purifiers also help when local "air quality alerts" are issued. Even if the air outside is filled with small pollutants that are harmful to my lungs, I can come home at the end of the day, run the IQAir and have decent breathable air.

Here is a little more background on local air quality issues:
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/air/health/status.asp

The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of fine particles in the air. Fine particle pollution is composed of microscopic dust, soot, liquid droplets and smoke particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and outdoor fires.

The Air Quality Index is forecast to reach the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an air quality watch is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities during the watch period.

People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms. Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.

Regarding your comment about air purifiers being a bad idea,

It's a great idea--if you never plan on leaving your home.

I can't

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[jez9999]

There has been no (to my knowledge) increase in resistance to bleach used in the kitchen for instance. It would be like gaining resistance to fire. The properties of these antibacterial agents is just too violent against the cell for evolution to do anything about it.

That's exactly why I clean my hands by setting them on fire. Anything left after it's been put out can stay.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[WilliamSChips]

And I'm glad that I can take ibuprofen, what with being not old enough(and not willing, for that matter) to drink scotch...

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[WilliamSChips]

I'll be taking the well known "global warming" approach where I already know what is going to prove with my research so your data point will have to be either an anomaly or possibly tweaked. You mean the one where all the controversy is created by the media?

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[scottv67]

They already have allergy treatments. Basically, they give you a shot every few months.

If you are talking about immunotherapy for the treatment of allergies, the frequency of the injections is more than "every few months". It's more like "once a week". The injections provide an ever-increasing amount of the substance the patient is allergic to in an effort to get the patient's immune system to "chill out". The last time I was receiving these shots, I was getting them every five days (Mon, Fri, Wed, Mon, Fri, etc.). I spent a lot of time sitting in the waiting room at the allergy clinic (you have to sit in the clinic after receiving the shot so the clinic staff can monitor you for an adverse reaction to the shot).

http://www.allergycapital.com.au/Pages/immth.html

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Orange Crush]

. . . to legally purchase and drink scotch where I live .

There. Fixed that for you.

Preferences aside, if you're old enough to be capable of drinking out of a glass, you're quite capable of drinking scotch. Sooner if your parents get creative with what they put in the baby bottles.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[G00F]

A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down . .

the medicine, which is some form or another of alcohol was used to help the kids sleep, to make it easier on the parents. . . .

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations: not only do you have two data points, but judging by the tone of your post, you're also a complete asshole!

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[adam.dorsey]

...trying to gnaw their cilia off the next morning because their mate is coyote-ugly ...

You mean E. coli ugly?

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

Cities are some of the filthiest places in the world. I am not sure why people feel that cities are cleaner than the "wild." Being in a city ensures constant exposure to an incredibly diverse set of diseases accumulated from everywhere in the world, not to mention the sheer volume of human grime and mold that accumulates in apartment buildings and in the streets around them. Having been raised in a rural environment, I find urban centers to be disgusting in comparison.

Hygiene in the cities is the only thing keeping them from being unlivable. Visit cities in other parts of the world where people shit in the streets, or where life expectancy for males is less than twenty, and suggest that it's a lack of hygiene that's making them immune to allergens.

Allergies, by the way, do develop among rural farm people. My mother was raised on a small farm, and has all sorts of allergies as well as asthma. So does my older sister, who while not raised on an actual farm, grew up in a rural environment where she raised chickens, rabbits, cows; played in hay; and so forth.

On the other hand by the time I came along my siblings were just shy of graduating from secondary school and I was raised without the hay, animals, and so forth, and have no allergies. Not that those things were causing the allergies, I just was fortunate in the genetic lottery.

There has been some research into certain parasites compromising the immune system of the host (so as to permits its continued existence) and it being suggested that humans developed a symbiotic relationship with these. I'm not sure that it isn't just a matter of the pollution humans producing making the immune system attack the body of the host. Most of the places where humans are infested by these parasites also lack the same levels of hazardous environmental pollutants, and having higher morbidity rates to begin with.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[stormeru]

I could infer from watch the Deadliest Catch that crab fishing must be a pretty safe line of work because there are no one-armed guys working the crab pots. The reality is there are no one-armed crab fisherman because the one-armed guys do not sign-up for a job that they know would be extremely hazardous for them to do with just one arm.

There are no one-armed crab fishermen because the one-armed guys lost their arms in the crab claws. :-S
Fixed that for you.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[irtza]

thank you. If I had mod points, I would boost you up and call it a day.

Part of what evolution teaches is a thing called "Selective pressure". If there is no pressure, then functionality is lost. For example, species that adapt to caves tend to go blind because destructive mutations to the eyes pose no greater survival risk.

The same is true for the lower classes vs middle vs upper classes as mentioned in parent. As sickle cell, thalessemia, reactive airway diseases become more treatable, their prevalence will increase or at least come to a steady state. This will also allow other diseases or complications of these conditions to manifest. An example of this would be side-effects of anti-retroviral agents. They can be quite devestating in some cases, but does that mean we stop prescribing them? You can only justify that if you - like Hitler (I thank thee Godwin for this one) - feel that the weak should die to strengthen the gene pool.

Many people are opposed to the idea of going on hemodialysis or getting an organ transplant. They site examples of people doing poorly on these therapies - about the amount of time they spend in the hospital - about the slew of medications they are on. One must bear in mind that these complications are far better than the alternative - a short miserable existence.

Look at the life-expectancy of the lower classes vs the middle class and you will see that hygiene has some significant advantages. Soap and antimicrobial agents are one of the few medical instruments that have had a great impact on the overall life-span of society. Most other advances barely left a dent in the overall life-span.

if someone says its better to have rampant cholera and dysentery wiping out huge populations of children - potentially doubling or tripling infant mortality - just so we don't have as much appendicitis, I would question their judgement greatly.

As for air purifiers (mentioned somewhere in this thread) - they possibly prevent interstitial lung disease on top of removing allergens.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[YoungHack]

I have studied little biology or medical subjects though I've read studies about this same sort of thing happening with asthma, polio & allergies. I think I've posted about this before but anecdotally I noticed there were no farmers who had allergies or asthma as I grew up and worked on farms with them. The young kids would play in hay and run around in the mud outside when it rained. So it seems that a problem with being an overly hygienic society today (as the article notes) is that we don't expose our young to these pathogens early on so they never adapt to them and suffer exposure to them later. This is why I recommend against anyone installing an air purifier in their home. It's a great idea--if you never plan on leaving your home.

Sorry, it's just anecdotes. I grew up and lived on a farm. I played in the hay barn, and ate dirt and dog food like any other kid. We had the windows open and the breeze blew through.

And I had allergies my whole life that made me miserable. When I became an adult, I was the first person at our local clinic to have to finished my allergy test prematurely (because my reaction was too strong to complete the final two rounds). I registered positive for 14 of 15 of the materials (pollens, molds, etc.) in the test.

It's nice to say that allergies come from being too clean. It seems wholesome somehow. Perhaps there is something to the notion, but it ain't everything.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[dpilot]

Chlorine resistance...

I seem to remember hearing that there are some bacteria evolving (pardon me, consulting with their Creator about a small redesign) resistance to low levels of chlorine, like the 3ppm or so commonly found in swimming pools. I haven't heard much, and there's been no general call to migrate away from chlorine to something else. Municipal water supplies have moved to chloramine, but I don't believe that's related to chlorine resistance.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[rizole]

Both my sister and me are asthmatic; she became a farmer...I wasn't that stupid!

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[rs79]

In the tropical fish world antibiotics are terribly abused. They do no good the way most aquarists use them, are cheap and never work frankly. Proper administration involves culturing the bug, seeiing if it's resistant to the drug you plan on using then feeding of injectig it. This is usually resevred for $15,000 koi or such. Not your 10 gallon tank with platies and neons.

Plus there's one bug Mycobacterium marinum that is zoonetic, that is, it corsses a species barrier (kinda rare, most pathogens are very host specific) - it can infect man. It's called "swimmers granuloma" if you catch it from a river (it's in pretty much all bodies of water) and "fishkeepers finger" if you get it from a fishtank. If a fish gets it it's called "Fish TB" as it's in the same genus as human tuberculosis. It's not easy to cure, it's a 6 month regimen of $400/mo antibiotics.

One guy in Germany died as a result of it, he ignored it. The last thing we want is this thing becoming anitobiotics resistant. So, we're switching to bacteriacides instead of antibiotics: copper sulfate, oregano oil, tea tree oil etc.

More here.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[edxwelch]

The are other things in cities that could be linked to incedence of asthma, for instance the constant exposure to car fumes

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you say his anecdotes don't prove anything, then use your own personal anecdote to try to disprove his ideas.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[illegalcortex]

While I agree with most of scottv67's response to your message, I did read some very interesting research correlating allergies and lack of hepatitis A infection. Google it and you'll see what I mean. What was really interesting is that they not only had the correlation, but they had the beginning of a causation theory based on a specific gene.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[raddan]

Also mouse/rat/cockroach droppings, all of which are more common in the city. As someone who comes from a long line of allergy sufferers and asthmatics, and whose family was until relatively recently, farmers, I have to agree with the GP that studies that indicate that too-clean houses are the cause of allergies/asthma are flawed. I grew up in the countryside, and was outside often, and yet, I have asthma. I picked up an air filter in my twenties and it has made an enormous difference in the quality of my sleep ever since.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[scottv67]

I like how you say his anecdotes don't prove anything, then use your own personal anecdote to try to disprove his ideas.

Which part of my post are you objecting to?

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[WarJolt]

I think our immune systems deal with much more now than they did a few thousand years ago. With all this international travel humans are exposed to a much larger variety of things.

I'm more concerned with antibacterial products creating super resistant bacteria.

I never take antibiotics and consider myself to have a strong immune system. I think antibiotics make your immune system lazy.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Working in a hospital we're constantly at war with the nasty bugs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRSA is the big bad bug.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Poromenos1]

What's wrong with unremoved splinters? I discovered the other day I had a tiny one in my finger, that's why it had been tender for a few months before. I removed it and everything's fine now, but your post suggests they were/are a problem?

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[JanneM]

The new form of the protein may be less efficient at its regular job. Or slower to produce. Or having a negative side effect on some other process. Or it's larger, so it takes more resources. Generally, there was a reason for the other form to have been preferred in the first place.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find the research but I thought a long time ago that a German study was done to find out why polio was "a middle class disease." If I recall they found that poor children were exposed to it since birth and rarely suffered from it since they were exposed to it always. The middle class children would be protected as infants but once exposed to it, their bodies would not be able to fight it. The upper class would take all costs to reduce exposure to it at all times--and they could. Hi. I'm currently working in an inner-city hospital. I'll be brief. The poor children who contracted polio probably died. That's why you never saw them.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[MillionthMonkey]

I don't see any reason to suspect that that is going to mutate back.

Genes mutate all the time everywhere in random places. It may take a while but if any stretch of DNA can be altered without a decrease in an individual's likelihood of survival, most versions will eventually be misspellings. As far as entropy is concerned there is no difference between a protein's shape getting kinked back or some new protein not being formed. As misspellings accumulate, the information entropy goes up.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[NeuroManson]

I dunno about that analogy, I haven't ever had any problems with appendicitis. However, I've noticed that in the past, I had inflammation with my tonsils, but afterwards, they would put out bacteria laden plaque whenever I had dental conditions (such as cavities, abscesses, etc).

Now, if one was to follow the logic, it could be the same deal with appendicitis. We basically have these "primitive" organs to keep us alive. Who (except perhaps a surgeon looking to pay off his BMW), could be driven to think otherwise?

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I like to roll around in cat feces every day.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Leto-II]

Maybe your situation is different, but the people I know who get allergy shots have to start out as you said, once a week or so, but gradually receive fewer and fewer up to around once a month or so. If you ever miss an appointment though you have to start over with the once a week shots...

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Maxo-Texas]

It is a balancing act.

The bacteria from your mouth have a huge impact on your lifespan (shortening it by 5 to 7 years on average).

So brushing & flossing can impact your lifespan more than many other things you might try. And you lose good years too. Swallowing the bacteria and their toxins causes heart damage. Of course losing your teeth starting at 45 doesn't do wonders for your lifespan (or your sex-life either).

OTH,
Some people have severe stomach problems until they get a parasitic worm infestation. For some reason, this infestation fixes them.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Cassius Corodes]

Actually in proper hospitals where they rotate the antibacterial agent used to clean the floors - by the time (about a month) when the old agent is used again the resistance has almost completely disappeared from the population. When you are talking about a 20 minute per division life form that is a lot of generations in a month for the resistance to be out competed by more efficient variants.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[mpe]

It's more a function of the fact that antibiotics attack a very definite metabolic activity that's vital for the bacterium to survive. The beta-lactams (think penicillin) interfere with the production of the peptidoglycan cell wall, whereas others interfere with bacterial protein synthesis. So, if the cell can come up with something to negate this attack (pumping the antibiotic out before it can do any damage, producing a protein that neutralizes the antibiotic) then it becomes resistant.

Since the action of the antibiotic is specific a single mutation may render a bacterium immune. It can thus reproduce without competition in an antibiotic contaminated environment.

On the contrary, something like bleach or alcohol massively disrupts the cell and kills it in a variety of ways all at once.

Thus making it unlikely that a single mutation could enable a bacterium to survive. The only situation where this is possible is with a dilute solution near the limit of what is generally toxic to bacteria.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[mpe]

Bacteria can't develop resistance to alcohol without becoming something other than bacteria. If they could, humanity would never have become civilized. Much of the problem with living together in large communities is finding clean water. The easiest way to turn infested water into something you can drink is by fermenting it into an alcoholic beverage.

Also a small number of people can produce enough beer for a village/town.
This method of water purification has affected human evolution. People who's ancestors drank beer (as their main source of fluid) have a greater ability to detoxify alcohol than those who didn't.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[mpe]

As sickle cell, thalessemia, reactive airway diseases become more treatable, their prevalence will increase or at least come to a steady state.

Sickle cell persists because there are environments where it makes people "more fit". Those with "sickle cell trait" are resistant to the malarial parasite. It's quite possible that some forms thalessemia may also protect against blood parasites.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Evil Pete]

From what I have read/seen in docos, a proportion of the population has evolved a strategy where the existence of harmless parasites is used as a 'thermostat' for the immune reaction. The immune sensitivity escalates until the parasites in question start producing some chemical (indicating stress?) which causes the immune system to reduce its activity. No parasites, then no control on the immune system. Result allergies etc. Not sure how much this has been validated at this point though.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Kyojin]

Not only may antibacterial and other cleaning products prevent our immune system from learning how to cope with such bacteria, viruses and so forth, some of them do direct damage to the immune system and other parts of our body.

Swimming has long been thought to assist against asthma, not to cure it, but to lessen symptoms. However, chlorine, which is used in many swimming pools, damages lung tissue - not exactly helpful to an asthmatic.

Furthermore, with repeated exposure to some allergens, the body begins to react more and more violently. Consider dish-washing liquid. Many people have used it for many years without gloves with no apparent side effects. Then out of the blue they develop eczema-like rashes on their hands and wrists.

It is quite possible that rather than children's immune systems learning to cope with common allergens, such as pollen, that they have not been exposed to triggers or chemicals which the body reacts worse to with repeated exposure, such as bleach and other cleaning products.

Finally there are children who are born with asthma, hayfever, allergy to peanuts (or rather, the mould that grows on various nuts, related to penicillin), so cleaning products are likely not entirely to blame.... Out of curiosity, was the mother ever exposed to these products while pregnant?

The point is, we know very little. Not all immune systems are the same, the immune system works better if exposed to some things sufficiently early and worse if exposed to others and these things differ with each person.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[bodrell]

There are aspects of our immune system that deal with macroscopic threats - parasites, foreign bodies, etc. In modern, industrialized society intestinal parasites and unremoved splinters aren't really a problem so a part of our immune system is left with very little to do. Like a bored child or pet, our immune system goes looking for something to do. It overreacts to pollen, proteins in common foods, and animal dander.

Yup. Right on the money--although I might add rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, type I diabetes, and maybe even autism to the list in the subject line. It's called the hygiene hypothesis, and has a lot of evidence backing it up. The first is that children in Ghana who were dewormed subsequently developed asthma and dust mite allergies. If they became reinfected with worms, the asthma and allergies went away. Recent article (abstract): http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a779532758~db=all

Also, people with autoimmune intestinal disorders (inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's) had nearly complete remission of their symptoms when they were voluntarily infected with pig whipworm eggs. The eggs can't fully mature in humans, so the person has to drink more eggs (in a shot of Gatorade) every few weeks. Article: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/537189.

Finally, there's the growing field of Metabolomics, which is basically what it sounds like. They've been discovering that gut microflora are incredibly important to our health because they do most of our digestion for us--and if our intestinal bacteria can't metabolize a drug, or turn it into a toxic metabolite, that can hurt us. In addition, bacteria may also secrete immunomodulatory stuff, so people who've had lots of antibiotics may have immune systems that are out of calibration. Link about effect of chamomile tea on gut bacteria (abstract): http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v3/n5/abs/nrmicro1152.html And since that link is just an abstract, here's another article by the authors with free full text, where mice were innoculated with human baby gut bacteria: http://www.nature.com/msb/journal/v3/n1/full/msb4100153.html

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[irtza]

This is true in areas with higher rates of blood-born parasites, and may explain why the prevalence remains so high now; however, in temperate climates you would expect a drop in the prevalence of HbSS - with the implementation of therapy (and until fairly recently, there wasn't a lot of sickle cell in the northern areas), this drop would be slowed dramatically or could potentially stop or reverse.

Sickle cell trait is protective - sickle cell disease is potentially lethal so there is a selective pressure against normal beta chains as well as homozygous sickle cell mutations in tropical environments. With advances in medical science, there may be no selective pressure on either of the homozygous traits.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[jasonwea]

It's not lupus.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, you need only 1 experiment to disprove something, but many to substantiate a hypothesis and give it some value as a theory.

Aside from that. I grew up on a farm, and had astmatic bronchitis since I was 1 or 2 years old. My brother has hayfever. Especially when I was younger than 5 I often got extremely ill, when my father was harvesting stuff. Even although I got my weekly shots and used pills that mostly made me sleep all day. After my 14th it somehow disappeared, so perhaps the treatment did help.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[aug24]

our immune system goes looking for something to do

Which, from an evolution/statistics perspective, is exactly what we should expect. It seems counter-intuitive, but in this dog-eat-dog model of life, what are the chances that nothing is attacking us? Pretty close to zero. So... go looking....

Cheers, you've helped crystallise a thought that's been bothering me.
Justin.

Re:Polio, Asthma & Allergies

[el_gordo101]

Preferences aside, if you're old enough to be capable of drinking out of a glass, you're quite capable of drinking scotch. Sooner if your parents get creative with what they put in the baby bottles.

A pacifier dipped in Canadian whiskey was always used as a cure for teething pains in my family, at least by my parent's generation on back. Might explain my extraordinary love of Crown Royal...

Paper Abstract

[nodrogluap]

The abstract, for those who don't have access to the journal (article DOI doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.08.032):

The human vermiform ("worm-like") appendix is a 5 to 10 cm long and 0.5 to 1
cm wide pouch that extends from the cecum of the large bowel. The architecture of the
human appendix is unique among mammals, and few mammals other than humans have
an appendix at all. The function of the human appendix has long been a matter of debate,
with the structure often considered to be a vestige of evolutionary development despite
evidence to the contrary based on comparative primate anatomy. The appendix is thought
to have some immune function based on its association with substantial lymphatic tissue,
although the specific nature of that putative function is unknown. Based (a) on a recently
acquired understanding of immune-mediated biofilm formation by commensal bacteria in
the mammalian gut, (b) on biofilm distribution in the large bowel, (c) the association of
lymphoid tissue with the appendix, (d) the potential for biofilms to protect and support
colonization by commensal bacteria, and (e) on the architecture of the human bowel, we
propose that the human appendix is well suited as a "safe house" for commensal bacteria,
providing support for bacterial growth and potentially facilitating re-inoculation of the
colon in the event that the contents of the intestinal tract are purged following exposure to a pathogen.

Re:Paper Abstract

[Anonymous Coward]

This is possibly the most informative comment on this article.

Reboot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the digestive system a computer?

Re:Reboot?

[nodrogluap]

The abstract says "re-inoculate", but CNN has to appeal to the non-technical (in a scientific sense). At least they got the story mostly right, which doesn't always happen with science headlines...

Re:Reboot?

[eldavojohn]

Is the digestive system a computer? Perhaps a better term might be 'repopulate' although it doesn't sound as trendy.

I suppose you could poke equally as much fun back at the computer science community with:

Virus? Is a computer the immune system? Fields of science borrow and share terms all the time. People seem to like the term 'reboot' despite it's origins being found in computers. I myself sometimes forget the pure origin of the word. The 'boot' part being from the bootloader of a system which plays a vital role in the bootstrapping process prior to the start of the operating system (if there is one installed). Do you think tailors are annoyed that we stole their bootstrap word?

Why nitpick terminology when everyone borrows it. Accept descriptive words, don't be prescriptive--I think that's what makes languages fun and interesting instead of boring, dry & dead.

Re:Reboot?

[TheRaven64]

I myself sometimes forget the pure origin of the word. The 'boot' part being from the bootloader of a system which plays a vital role in the bootstrapping process prior to the start of the operating system (if there is one installed). Do you think tailors are annoyed that we stole their bootstrap word? Apparently you have forgotten the pure origin of the word. It comes from a fairy tale (from which a Heinlein story also gets its name) where the protagonist escapes from a hole by lifting himself up by his bootstraps.

When a computer is turned on, it needs to load some code to run. In order to do this, it needs some code to tell it which code to load. In order to load that code, it needs some code to tell it what to load, and so on. The solution is to have the computer metaphorically pick itself up by its bootstraps to get the first bit loaded. The code it then runs became known as the bootstrap, and later the term was corrupted to boot loader, and other variations.

Re:Reboot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well 'reboot' itself just means to boot up again. But why use the word 'boot', instead of start. I mean think about it, what is the etymology here?

It has it's origins in 'bootstrapping' which the computer folk borrowed from elsewhere.

Re:Reboot?

[tomhudson]

"The solution is to have the computer metaphorically pick itself up by its bootstraps to get the first bit loaded. "

It was always a poor metaphor.

The reality is that once the cpu is initialized, it executes whatever code is found at a fixed, hard-coded address. That's not "lifting yourself up by your bootstraps."

Pul the cpu and ram out and you'll see nothing happens. No bios initialization, no post, etc.

Re:Reboot?

[eod_punk]

The digestive version of Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

Re:Reboot?

[TheRaven64]

The metaphor predates CPUs by a good few decades. The machines for which the concept was invented were very early stored program computers. Originally, computers had their software hard-wired, and running a new program meant rewiring the computer. The next generation, starting with the Manchester Baby, stored their programs in the same way as they stored data and so encountered the problem of bootstrapping since they no longer had a hard-coded program. They had to have a simple program hard coded that would allow them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and load the stored program. By the time microprocessors and things like the x86 BIOS were around the term was already old.

Re:Reboot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why yes it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system

Re:Reboot?

[SnowZero]

I never before thought of Alt-Ctl-Del as a metaphor for Cholera. I like Windows even less now...

Re:Reboot?

[sjames]

In the old days, you might enter the bootstrap on a front panel (in the snow over your head uphill both ways). In it's simplest form a set of toggle switches connected to the address and data bus and a pushbutton to strobe the write line (yes, manually, CPU not yet running). Eventually, the bootstrap code started being placed in a ROM and instead of forcing an address into the program counter, it would go to a defined value when reset strobes (which the chipset does when the power supply stabilizes).

For that matter, when entered manually, the bootstrap program was likely just barely enough to load a second stage bootstrap from somewhere that would then load the OS.

Now get off my lawn :-)

Does that mean...

[cronot]

... that someone that has the appendix removed and has a case of amoebic dysentery may die of it?

Re:Does that mean...

[Spacejock]

According to the article (I know, I know...) in modern society we just pick up the germs we need from other people. That wasn't an option in sparsely-populated times.

Re:Does that mean...

[pjt33]

Amoebic dysentery can kill you whether or not you have an appendix, unless you receive adequate medical treatment.

complete lie

[ILuvRamen]

Well it must not do that because long story short, a similar thing happened to me and I had to take pills full of "hibernating" bacteria to replace them because they weren't coming back. I remember learning in school that it used to be used to handle indigestible things like tree bark and whatever else dumb cavemen ate lol. But then people stopped being so dumb and ate good, clean stuff so people who were born with non-working appendixes lived and eventually I guess overtook the ones with working ones.

Obligatory

[onosson]

I, for one, welcome our bacteria-breeding appendix overlords.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

this joke died 5 years ago. EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN POST SOMEONE MAKES THIS JOKE! it is not funny even as a cliche

Initial configuration...

[Empiric]

Rebooting appendixes and DHCP neurons?

Neat.

Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[zukinux]

Evolution would have gotten rid of it if this part were useless.
There are some parts we don't know of its parts, but still are not useless. Evolution/God does their work quite well I guess.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Belacgod]

Incorrect. Evolution would have got rid of it if it was actively detrimental. The human body has plenty of useless-but-neutral features--earlobes, for one--that won't go away.

Evolution doesn't approach the best solution, just the solution that's better than the others in existence at the time.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[tomhudson]

>"Evolution would have gotten rid of it if this part were useless."

Evolution takes time. Hence the darwin awards

Also, its a "moving target", since evolution alters the environment (predators, food chain, etc.), one consequence is the current "solution" is always sub-prime.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Poor Understanding of the Evolutionary Process

Evolution only gets rid of things which are detrimental to the reproduction of the species, and only if it is either:
A) Trivial to remove through a small number of mutations
B) Over an incredibly long period of time

As long as the appendix isn't causing a significant impediment to the survival of the species (and no, a small number of cases of appendicitis don't count within a fairly huge population), it's not going to go away.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[speaker of the truth]

The human body has plenty of useless-but-neutral features--earlobes, for one Boy will they laugh at you in 100 years time when earlobes are revealed to have a very important function. Has this article taught you nothing?

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[pla]

Evolution would have gotten rid of it if this part were useless.

No. Evolution would have gotten rid of it if it caused a net increase in the risk of death between menarche and menopause (males simply don't matter here).

Now, we might presume at first glance that since appendicitis can kill, and a not-inconsiderable portion of the population will at some point get it. But the lower incidence in underdeveloped countries suggests that its modern danger to us may result largely from lifestyle; and, as we currently chop it out at the first sign of inflammation, we may also overstate the actual risk of death from appendicitis in the absence of treatment.



Evolution/God does their work quite well I guess.

You can believe what you want about a deity, and what mechanisms it put into place to run the universe. But beware of animism by ascribing "intent" to abstract statistical descriptions of phenomena.

Re: Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Polemicist]

Evolution would have gotten rid of it if this part were useless.

It is not exactly true that evolution would get rid of a part that has become useless. Evolution through natural selection would tend to remove mainly deleterous (harmful) structures, but structures that are neither harmful nor helpful are masked from natural selection. To explain the loss of the vestigial structures, we must realize that the individual organism has only so many resources (energy, molecules, etc) with which to survive. This causes natural selection to select against structures that use up the organism's resources without contributing to its survival (for example in whales, who still have vestigial hips and leg bones, which serve no function and are much reduced in size).
This leads to the question of why the structure is still present. There are two major reasons why we would still observe the structure today: time and cost.
If natural selection only started working on removing the structure in recent time (geologically speaking), it would not be finished instantly in one generation, as natural selection works by tiny modifications that are build on generation after generation. Hence the canon of natural history: Natura non facit saltum (nature makes no leap).
A second possibility for its continued presence is that further reduction in its size or its total absence would be more disadvantageous the organism's fitness than its presence. This seems to be what the study is suggesting, that even though it is not used to the full extent it once was, there is some tiny function that is still useful enough to justify the resources the organism spends on it.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Spacejock]

Of course earlobes are useful. I mean, what else could you possibly hang earrings off ... your privates?

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[foobsr]

The human body has plenty of useless-but-neutral features--earlobes

Subject to gravity, they give you (additional) information relating to posture/acceleration if you are not an insensitive clod.

CC.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[m50d]

Not true, the obvious counterexample being the tailbone. Evolution only gets rid of useless things if they present a significant impediment to survival.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[nurb432]

Evolution will drop useless parts as well, just not as quickly since it doesnt effect survival at the time. ( where it may have at some point in the past ). Remember too, mating rituals are part of survival. Often in the animal kindgom if you arent as pretty as the competition you cease to contribute to the gene pool. Lobes and other apparent useless-but-neutral features may have been a 'pretty' factor 10 thousand years ago for us.

And since evolution never stops, you cant really predict when something like earlobs will disappear. It just hasn't happened YET.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[MyLongNickName]

Actually, this just goes to show you can draw any conclusions you want with any fact you want.

When I was in high school, I remember our science teacher talking about this. Since the appendix doesn't do anything it is a vestigial organ. Why would God give us an organ that doesn't do anything. This fact disproved God. In fact, he argued, evolution is the only mechanism that would produce vestigial organs, and in fact evolution PROVES that there must be vestigial organs left over after changes in biology cause some organs to lose their purpose.

I wonder if he has gotten religion since then.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[E 99]

No. Evolution would have gotten rid of it if it caused a net increase in the risk of death between menarche and menopause (males simply don't matter here).

No, as an appendix is a complex structure, and its presence in an organism lowers the organism's informational entropy, evolution would remove it without positive pressure to keep it.

as we currently chop it out at the first sign of inflammation, we may also overstate the actual risk of death from appendicitis in the absence of treatment.

As a parent of a child whose appendix burst within a couple days of the first abdominal pain, I am naturally inclined to doubt that.

You can believe what you want about a deity, and what mechanisms it put into place to run the universe. But beware of animism by ascribing "intent" to abstract statistical descriptions of phenomena.

Or you could be wary of attempts to ascribe to physical causes things which have spiritual causes. Or the best solution is probably to be wary of attempts to ascribe to anything any apparent causes which aren't the actual causes.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Shadowmist]

Evolution doesn't work at a purpose. It's all a matter whether an organism with a set of parts eats, or outbreeds another in the same niche. The advantages in our set that kept us around don't automatically get rid of the appendix unless a mutation which produces an appendixless Human outbreeds the normal model.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[vux984]

This fact disproved God.

Your science teacher was an idiot.

He should have known that that not knowing what something was for doesn't prove it has no use. For all we know its the organ that's going to save us from the Great Plague of 2045.

That aside, the God described in the Bible does a metric ton of stuff that makes no sense. And the design of creatures abounds with bizarre useless designs.

Consider the bedbug Xylocaris Maculipennis, whose reproductive process includes "homosexual stabbing rape".

Some bedbug species use a mating plug, where after mating the male 'seals' the female shut so that other males can't mate with it. Clever trick, right. A biological chastity belt.

Well, some species have 'adapted' to this by way of a stabbing rape, where they literally impale the female and bypass the plug. So why would God bother with the 'seal' design, if its not even going to work, and he's going to have males just impale females to get past it?

But it gets better, in the case of the Xylocaris Maclipennis, rather than stab females, it homosexually impales other *males* to inseminates *them*, so that when the the victim male mates with a female the homosexual rapist mates by proxy.

If there is a god, he's got a twisted sense of humor.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[pla]

No, as an appendix is a complex structure, and its presence in an organism lowers the organism's informational entropy, evolution would remove it without positive pressure to keep it.

Well said! Okay, my apologies for failing to give you enough credit... I took your previous statement as the all-too-common idea that evolution somehow actively removes unneeded parts wholesale from a species.

I still disagree somewhat, though much more resprctfully, in that the entropic view (over a finite number of iterations, of course) presumes that either a low number of single changes can remove the appendix, or all possible intermediate stages have either no effect or a positive one on viability of the organism. It could turn out that with an appendix less than a third its current length, the right kidney shifts slightly, increasing the risk of death from renal infection.



Or you could be wary of attempts to ascribe to physical causes things which have spiritual causes.

Here, I have to sharply disagree with you. I do believe in a deity, but Nietzsche summed it up nicely - "God is dead", at least for epistemological purposes.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[bwen]

Your not-inconsiderable portion of the population is considerable - about 7%. Appendicitis does kill often if left untreated. Delay in diagnosis is the principle reason for mortality so to "chop" it off at the first sign of inflammation is usually a good idea. Spontaneous resolution of appendicitis is not something to wait for. Having a patient perforate in front of you is considered bad medicine in the US. If it does serve the purpose of protecting the bowel flora during bouts of cholera / dysentery, then it probably is superfluous in a developed country and will be selected against (esp in fertile women as appendicitis usually strikes people between 10-30.) I do wonder if it is able to salvage more bacteria when faced with antibiotics and if it helps repopulate the gut in developed countries after a pt takes a Z-pak or fluoroquinole for their "bronchitis."

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Poromenos1]

I mean, what else could you possibly hang earrings off ... your privates? I don't have any privates under my command, but I heard they really frown upon that in the army.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Nazlfrag]

I doubt that is their function, I would say it is to create a hemispherical cavity behind the earlobe which helps to collect sound information coming from behind. Either that, or to nibble on in some sort of primitive mating ritual.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[Devistater]

AFAIK, a number of supposed vestigial organs (in both humans and animals) have been discovered to have a purpose in recent years, so they are no longer nessasarily considered vestigial

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[foobsr]

I doubt that is their function

It must be (though not an exclusive one), as the whole body is involved in control of posture, which is not a particularly easy task, neither from theory (for an idea) nor in practice (see sig).

CC.

Re:Evolution would have gotten rid of it

[pnutjam]

ewww...You still have earlobes?

mixup

[Tim4444]

oops, i read that as book appendix. "Why, it's the place to put all the content of your book without the fluff..."

I had always heard that the appendix helps with the digestion of raw meat which is just superfluous now that we have fire.

the purpose of the appendix

[Anonymous Coward]

On the evening of the sixth day of creation, God had an argument with his editors about what to do with some material that all agreed was clever but not an especially great fit. So they decided to move it to the appendix.

Ah Slashdot

[cabjf]

The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case. Where everything is compared to either a car or a computer.

Re:Ah Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that text is from TFA (i.e. CNN)

Re:Ah Slashdot

[hey]

Cars are just a kind of computer.

System reboot: continue?

[lpangelrob]

The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.

Gives a new meaning to the term "stack dump". I myself am currently suffering from a stop error. :-(

Re:System reboot: continue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gives a new meaning to the term "stack dump". I myself am currently suffering from a stop error. :-(

That may be too much information.

Re:System reboot: continue?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the halting problem for you.

Re:System reboot: continue?

[kalpol]

I myself am currently suffering from a stop error. :-( Better than buffer overflow. This being Texas - OU weekend, going to be a lot of that around.

"produces"

[Gothmolly]

Just like leaving meat out in the sun "produces" flies? Didn't we sort all this out back in the 17th century or whatever? Oh wait, its CNN, that paragon of quality journalism.

Re:"produces"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Have you ever run that dude's experiment with meat and a covered/uncovered jar?

It's all a hoax! You've been fooled all these years! Meat produces flies! :P

Re:"produces"

[Reziac]

Someone lacking scientific lingo, substituting "produces" for "cultures".

It doesn't PRODUCE the bacteria

[Anonymous Coward]

It gives them a place to hideout if the mainline flora gets killed off.

Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

is coming. Never mind ID did not predict any specific design intent about appendix other than, "we are designed, so there must be some use for all the useless organs". But that won't stop them from predicting immediate demise of Darwinian evolution.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[suv4x4]

is coming. Never mind ID did not predict any specific design intent about appendix other than, "we are designed, so there must be some use for all the useless organs". But that won't stop them from predicting immediate demise of Darwinian evolution.

They can't use this to push ID since it's a straw man argument. Evolution never suggested or required that appendix doesn't have a role in our body, or never had one.

You can hear poor religious folk and poor scientists use it in their arguments, but in such a polarized issue, you'll find stupid people and poor arguments on both sides, negative proof is another form of logical fallacy that can't be used to prove an opposing theory.

In other words, "someone said appendix is useless because of evolution, this mean ID is correct" is nonsense.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry - they still have no way of explaining, in creationist terms, why nerds have reproductive systems. How can such useless organs be explain except as artifacts of evolution?

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to warn everyone against the onslaught of the atheists and leave religion fervor out of it. but I see you already dragged religion into the scientific discussion and ruined it as much as the creationists do.

Why don't you hate zealots all just back off so us scientific types can talk about it without your evangelism?

you atheists are as bad as or worse than the creationists.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Why do you theists crave the "scientific" label so much? Why do you want to shoehorn the adjective "scientific" to the religious texts? Is it because all the theistic power bases like the church, and the political parties have lost their credibility completely? Is it because only science has some credibility and a track record of delivering progress? And you need to somehow get part of that credibility rub off on you?

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Anonymous Coward]

You just posted a hateful bigoted rant about how everyone except you is hateful and bigoted. You're not going to win many followers that way.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno about you, but I've found a good use for my "useless" organ...

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[bigstrat2003]

And why the hell, exactly, did you post this, which is sure to draw the sort of post you named? It's idiotic to say "now people will post this", because you practically guarantee that they'll do so, when they may not have if you hadn't spurred them into posting about it.

Jeez, your post is practically the definition of flamebait, as all it accomplishes is to stir up controversy.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Jarjarthejedi]

I would just like to point out that yours is the first post that mentions ID, but not the first post by Evolutionists attacking the supposed wave of Creationists arguments (which failed to materialize until lambasted I might add).

Creationists have claimed for a long time that the Appendix has a function, Evolutionists have attacked that claim vigorously, the fact that it seems to have a function is evidence in favor of Creationist arguments primarily as they have been the ones claiming that it has a function. Now of course it's not conclusive in any way shape or form, it just takes away a bit from the anti-creation argument, it doesn't add to the pro-creation argument much at all.

Just because the specifics aren't predicted doesn't mean it's not evidence. I don't seem to recall Newton's theory of gravity predicting the exact gravitational force of the Earth, just that it was there.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're saying that males don't need to empty their bladders via an external drain pipe attachment, I'll claim that the bottom end of the digestive system is also irrelevant.

^H^H^H^H^H^H^H WAIT!!! I'm wrong.

Unlike reproductive organs, the bottom end of the digestive system is very important to geeks because without it, we wouldn't have thousands of links on slashdot to goatse.

I now understand your logic.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[resonte]

I would argue the opposite. This is a positive discovery for evolution. That the appendix has a function makes more sense than being just being detrimental to health.

Evolution would select out useless body parts unless a sudden change in environment/diet is observed which makes the body part useless/redundant. Such as the rise of human civilisation.

But only a god/gods would create an organ that is useless and has been useless for many many generations of our ancestors. This discounts a sudden change in environment as an explanation, since it should only affect the first few generations.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[JanneM]

Never mind ID did not predict any specific design intent about appendix other than, "we are designed, so there must be some use for all the useless organs". Well, as long as they can't give an ID explanation for why they have a frontal cortex they're not off that particular hook in any case.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[E 99]

In other words, "someone said appendix is useless because of evolution, this mean ID is correct" is nonsense.

Sure. However, when a theory gives rise to predictions that turn out to be false, that certainly undermines that theory. One of the most heard predictions of neodarwinism, at least as understood by the masses, is that the appendix is vestigal. This study, along with the other studies it references, to my mind constitutes adequate proof that the appendix is NOT vestigal. Therefore neodariwnism, at least as understood by the masses, is a highly flawed theory.

All this obviously says nothing whatsoever about ID or creationism.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[E 99]

Why do you theists crave the "scientific" label so much? Why do you want to shoehorn the adjective "scientific" to the religious texts? Is it because all the theistic power bases like the church, and the political parties have lost their credibility completely? Is it because only science has some credibility and a track record of delivering progress? And you need to somehow get part of that credibility rub off on you?

I've never known a theist to crave the "scientific" label. However, most people who are interested in spiritual truth, are also interested in natural truth. People like Newton, who spent more time pursuing spiritual truth than natural truth, still deserve to be called scientists for their work involving natural truth.

It is noteworthy that all attempts so far to link attained spiritual knowledge as leverage for attaining natural knowledge have proven deeply flawed, and those who were successful scientists as well as spiritual seekers, such as Newton, Lemaître, etc., pursued natural truth independently from any spiritual findings.

Suggesting that the religious seek the credibility of the track record of science is silly. The track record of the progress of religion includes the virtual abolishment of the once-ubiquitous practices of infanticide and slavery. The track record of science includes providing intellectual credibility and the color of rationality to the holocaust and communism.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[E 99]

Yeah, well NOW the onslaught is coming... troll! ANTI-religious, ANTI-theist, or ANTI-creationist posts are ALWAYS the first posts to breach these subjects on slashdot. I love the study of both natural and spiritual phenomenon, but I would much rather discuss the findings concerning the functions of the appendix than get goaded into defending my beliefs, or if not goaded myself, have to wade through the bickering of others who have been.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[suv4x4]

Sure. However, when a theory gives rise to predictions that turn out to be false, that certainly undermines that theory. One of the most heard predictions of neodarwinism, at least as understood by the masses, is that the appendix is vestigal. This study, along with the other studies it references, to my mind constitutes adequate proof that the appendix is NOT vestigal. Therefore neodariwnism, at least as understood by the masses, is a highly flawed theory.

All this obviously says nothing whatsoever about ID or creationism.

Neodawinism suggest vestigal organs may exist in an organism. It doesn't suggest if we don't know the function of an organ, it's vestigal. You don't interpret this properly.

Plus, this study in fact says this organ played a role before, and in modern society it has no function. Some people are born *without* appendix and live to pass this onto their kids, since appendix is no longer needed organ.

That's evolution right before your eyes.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Anonymous Coward]

You just posted a hateful bigoted rant about how everyone except you is hateful and bigoted. You're not going to win many followers that way. Huh? That's a tried and tested method that's been successfully used for thousands of years. Why wouldn't it work now?

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Wow! You praise Newton's spiritual work so highly. Tell me some of the serious theistic moral spiritual insight that Newton found which was taken seriously by the Church. Even today nobody discusses or analyzes Newton's spiritual thought. If the scientists have not been putting Newton on the pedestal and showered him with respect, he would have been quietly forgotten by the Church. So much for you new found respect for Newton.

Suggesting that the religious seek the credibility of the track record of science is silly. The track record of the progress of religion includes the virtual abolishment of the once-ubiquitous practices of infanticide and slavery. The track record of science includes providing intellectual credibility and the color of rationality to the holocaust and communism.

What? Religion is taking credit for abolishment of slavery? Are you talking about the same Judeo-Christian religion that enshrines the right of slave owning in the Ten Commandments? "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, ass, ox, nor man slave nor woman slave". It is the God of Abraham who demanded infanticide as a sacrifice.

As for science lending credibility to holocaust and communism, why are you forgetting Christianity lending its support for the Inquisition, Salem witch trials, and all the atrocities committed in the name of Christ by the Conquistadors? Only after science gained a foot hold and removed the legislative power from the Church, it reformed the Church into a tolerable institution of charity. When it had the political power it attracted too many undesirable types interested in the power to the leadership positions.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Pooua]

Neodawinism suggest vestigal organs may exist in an organism.

I'm old enough to remember when evolutionists had no doubt that evolutionary theory predicts the existence of vestigial organs. It is the natural consequence of biological change. That was also back when the definition of a vestigial organ was "an organ that has atrophied due to disuse." This was the definition that Darwin used (as he believed that use or disuse of an organ was hereditable... another historical fact about Darwin that is sometimes denied by modern evolutionists). The appendix was cited as evidence for our biological evolution.

It doesn't suggest if we don't know the function of an organ, it's vestigal.

Historically, if evolutionists have not immediately recognized a use for an organ (or anything else, for that matter), they have placed it in the "vestigial" category (or "useless"). In Darwin's day, evolutionists identified, IIRC, 183 "vestigial" organs, based on the definition that these organs no longer had a function and were just hanging around until they dropped off. That number shrank considerably until the modern era, until the term "vestigial" was redefined to mean "an organ whose current function is reduced, compared to its use in our (presumed) evolutionary ancestors." Meaning, that if an evolutionist were to believe that we evolved from hawks, our eyes would be considered vestigial, because we don't see as well as a hawk; or, if the evolutionist believes we evolved from some creature with lesser vision than ours, then our eyes are not vestigial. Suddenly, whether an organ is vestigial or not depends not strictly on the organ, but on the evolutionary model.

Plus, this study in fact says this organ played a role before, and in modern society it has no function.

And it is incorrect. Creation Scientists demonstrated in studies and experiments a decade ago that the appendix aids in immunity and radiation resistance. Furthermore, populations without an appendix have higher rates of cancer than those who retain their appendix.

Some people are born *without* appendix and live to pass this onto their kids, since appendix is no longer needed organ.

Some people are born *without* arms and live to have children, so arms obviously are no longer needed, either.

Silly evolutionist! Just because people can live to produce offspring with the same trait does not mean that the organ is useless, unhelpful or vestigial!

That's evolution right before your eyes.

Bunkum. Evolutionary theory only succeeds through the use of semantics, not from facts of nature. The definition of "vestigial" is just one example.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Dimensio]

Creation Scientists demonstrated in studies and experiments a decade ago that the appendix aids in immunity and radiation resistance.

Please name these "Creation Scientists" and cite their relevant research.

Evolutionary theory only succeeds through the use of semantics, not from facts of nature.

This is false. Had you actually studied the theory of evolution, you would know this.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[gordo3000]

Some people are born *without* arms and live to have children, so arms obviously are no longer needed, either.

Now, while the rest of your post made sense, this is just stupid. Unless you can show a genetic trait that causes you to be born without arms then you don't have a comparable situation. The problem with studies looking for a purpose to the appendix is that you ignore the fact that even without an appendix, there is no loss in fertility or meaningful life expectancy(basically, up till you can't have kids anymore). So while it may have uses, it is not necessary.

That an evolutionist can admit an error freely and move on is what makes it science. If historically all you can say evolutionists have jumped the gun on declaring some vestigal (especially the appendix) then you limit yourself to only those scientists you want to use as examples. There are many, many, scientists that study the appendix for a living or else we wouldn't have this story today.

The real question is why do you feel that it's so bad to admit you were wrong and update your theory? Scientists got used to it a while ago (as did most of the rest of the world). If the fact that scientists are constantly correcting their own errors makes you feel uncomfortable, then maybe scientific endeavors are not for you. I would be scared if science stopped doing that(which, I will admit, they have a penchant for doing every once in a long while) because they science will degrade to the intellectual level of religion (basically, everything bad in religion), and not have any of the good that can come with it(spirituality). That will be an example of a vestigial discipline.

Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Religion is taking credit for abolishment of slavery? Are you talking about the same Judeo-Christian religion that enshrines the right of slave owning in the Ten Commandments? "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, ass, ox, nor man slave nor woman slave". It is the God of Abraham who demanded infanticide as a sacrifice. The Torah does not claim that slavery is a moral good, or else Israel would not have needed the Exodus. The Ten Commandments are a set of rules with a pretty specific and limited scope, not a commentary on whether or not slaves should be kept. As for the sacrifice of Abraham, it was just a test. God told Abraham to stop before he went through with it. I think you are arguing against fundamentalists though, and not mainstream Christianity.

As for science lending credibility to holocaust and communism, why are you forgetting Christianity lending its support for the Inquisition, Salem witch trials, and all the atrocities committed in the name of Christ by the Conquistadors? Only after science gained a foot hold and removed the legislative power from the Church, it reformed the Church into a tolerable institution of charity. When it had the political power it attracted too many undesirable types interested in the power to the leadership positions. "Christianity" lent support to nothing - it's a set of beliefs. Oh, you mean so-called Christians who were pretty obviously not living the tenets of their faith? Now we agree on something! "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found too difficult and left untried." - G.K. Chesterton (I think).

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[Kenji DRE]

"There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body." I too was wondering what exactly does that mean.

This is Slashdot

[stud9920]

This is Slashdot here. The only purpose of the appendix for most people here is to pee.

Re:This is Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you've confused appendix with penis.

Here's a tip, if you are not sure about the meaning of a word, try looking it up in a dictionary before making yourself look stupid.

What about the Table of Contents?

[JackMeyhoff]

Was I the ONLY person who thought of Book Appendices when I read the title?

From my perspective

[Scrameustache]

The purpose of the appendix to spontaneously kill you in a horribly painful way.
Unless you have access to surgeons. Yay modern medicine!

Re:From my perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a great comment. how many people's lives are saved by appendix removal? what are the chances of surviving a burst? It's my understanding that when the appendix goes haywire in a kid, it can burst, leading to a massive and potentially fatal abdominal infection...

Re:From my perspective

[uglyduckling]

The article isn't advocating not doing appendicectomies for appendicitis, it's simply proposing a useful role for part of the intestines that is generally held to be vestigial.

The lifetime risk for acute appendicitis is 8.6% for men (http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/a/acute_appendicitis/prevalence.htm) so 91.4% of people never have a problem with their appendix. It's good to know that it's serving a useful purpose for those people.

Re:From my perspective

[nicklott]

It's called peritonitis and I can assure you it hurts. A lot.

Re:From my perspective

[Fear the Clam]

It's not just for kids. My appendix ruptured (with subsequent peritonitis) when I was 23, something I would not recommend for a good time. The eight days in the hospital after the surgery were not much fun either.

Re:Brace yourselves people, evolutionist onslaught

[Trelane, the Squire]

heh, and here I was about to say that here was where the evolutionists would start hemming and hawing about how they've been using the appendix as proof, because an intelligent designer wouldn't put in a useless organ. unfortunately I think both of us are right, there is about to be a creationist and evolutionist onslaught for the same (but different) reasons

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[tomhudson]

Well, bacteria are the most populous living organisms in the world, and they're developing resistance to all our antibiotics, so its only a matter of time before we see stuff like ...:

[_] I for one welcome our bacterial scum pond overlords
[_] I have no intestine, you ignorant clod scumbag!
[_] Imagine a beowulf cluster of ... oh, they're ALREADY a cluster ... and drug resistant - I guess we're cluster-f$cked!
[_] All your base nucleotides belong to us
[_] In Soviet Russia antibiotics kill YOU!

Mind you, we're talking about a culture that still insists on doctor-shopping to get antibiotics for viral infections, and over-indulges in anti-bacterial wipes, plastics, etc., to the point of both compromising our own immune systems, and breeding super-bugs.

Support contract

[HangingChad]

The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.

So your appendix is run by Microsoft support.

Re:Support contract

[Thumper_SVX]

The whole digestive system is run by Microsoft in general; it takes in some great "food", strips out all the good stuff and produces only shit.

Keeping kids healthy

[throatmonster]

Want to give your offspring the best chance?

1. Breastfeed. Not just for 6 weeks either. Worldwide average weaning age is 3-4yrs. U.S. is about the worst at this.
2. Let your kids eat dirt. No, don't encourage it. Just don't freak when it happens.
3. Be very conservative with immunizations. How many middle class US children are really going to get exposed to Hep? And since thermerisol has finally been removed from vaccination products, the autism rate has finally stopped exploding (despite the fact that studies show no link between the two).
4. LOTS of physical contact! Breastfed babies get this. It stimulates brain development.
5. Love the little knuckleheads despite everything.
6. Learn basic biology and medicine yourself. Your offspring, your responsibility. Knowledge and common sense go a long way towards health.

We're still learning about biology and medicine. Oh shit, you mean bacteria can evolve to become resistant to antibiotics, and that blanketing the population with antibiotics (antibaterical handsoap, anyone?) causes bigger problems than it solves? I've never heard of a staph infection from a home birth. When women give birth at home around all the same germs they are exposed to anyway, postpartum infections are almost nonexistent.

OTOH, I will take exception to the idea that there were no allergies and less sickness among rural populations 2 generations ago. There were. The difference is that those kids were just labeled "sickly" and often died back then. Is it a bad thing that those kids have a chance now?

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_(incidence) seems to indicate that the US autism rate has continued to rise after the removal of Thimerosal from children's vaccines five years ago. Do you have more recent data?

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[Craig Davison]

3. Be very conservative with immunizations. How many middle class US children are really going to get exposed to Hep? And since thermerisol has finally been removed from vaccination products, the autism rate has finally stopped exploding (despite the fact that studies show no link between the two).

You're confused. Vaccinate your children! The only reason these infectious diseases aren't a threat to your kid is that everyone else was vaccinated at one point. Vaccinations actually strengthen the immune system. Here's a FAQ: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/vs-sv/vs-faq_e.html

But just to reinforce your point, I'll add 7. Don't slather on the antibiotic ointment when you get a paper cut. Don't use Lysol in your kitchen - use a bleach solution if soap is not going to cut it.

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[the Dragonweaver]

"I will take exception to the idea that there were no allergies and less sickness among rural populations 2 generations ago. There were. The difference is that those kids were just labeled "sickly" and often died back then. Is it a bad thing that those kids have a chance now?"

I concur. My father-in-law, a farming Depression baby, suffered from asthma his whole life, and the last twenty years of his life were a state of constant illness, mostly from the damage he'd suffered pre-treatment. (Though in the later years, there was certainly an element of drugs to treat the side effects of the drugs to treat the primary problem. Certain things stack up over time.)

The irony is that he outlived his "healthy" siblings, every one.

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[Loke the Dog]

2 and 3 contradict each other. One says immunization by exposure to bacteria/viruses is good, the other says its bad. Admittedly, sterile needles have replaced dirty fingers for the last century. But I don't see why the old method was better than the new one.

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[Jay L]

Admittedly, sterile needles have replaced dirty fingers for the last century

Mostly. There are still rural parts of the U.S. where extruded surgical steel is in short supply, or rusts too easily (think of the humidity in the Mississippi delta), and hypodermic dirty fingers are still used for injections there.

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[king-manic]

1. Breastfeed. Not just for 6 weeks either. Worldwide average weaning age is 3-4yrs. U.S. is about the worst at this.
2. Let your kids eat dirt. No, don't encourage it. Just don't freak when it happens.
3. Be very conservative with immunizations. How many middle class US children are really going to get exposed to Hep? And since thermerisol has finally been removed from vaccination products, the autism rate has finally stopped exploding (despite the fact that studies show no link between the two).
4. LOTS of physical contact! Breastfed babies get this. It stimulates brain development.
5. Love the little knuckleheads despite everything.
6. Learn basic biology and medicine yourself. Your offspring, your responsibility. Knowledge and common sense go a long way towards health.

1- is good
2- is mixed. dirt is ok dirt with garden fertilizer/pesticide on it is a trip to medi-center.
3- immensely ignorant. Most immunizations have little or no side effects. There isn't a lot of literature/primary studies suggesting anythign to the contrary.
4- Not a bad idea.
5- Off course
6- Collary: learn it for legitimate sources.

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[NeuroManson]

And STOP putting helmets and pads on them for everything they do! I didn't have any, and it didn't hurt my brainbrainbrain brainbrainmbainbranbanbin at all!!11!

(in all seriousness, however, there was a sci-fi novel I read that was relevent, about a kid who was raised in a sterile technological environment, who freaked out, for example, in being faced with the prospect of eating a mere orange, but then ask anyone today where their food comes from, and about 4/5ths of the time they'll say "From the store". Go figure)

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[afabbro]

Fascinating. Now what does this have to do with the appendix, which is the topic we're discussing?

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[JordanL]

3. Be very conservative with immunizations. How many middle class US children are really going to get exposed to Hep? And since thermerisol has finally been removed from vaccination products, the autism rate has finally stopped exploding (despite the fact that studies show no link between the two).

Well, in the US this would disqualify your child from receiving a public education.

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not confused

For any particular individual it makes sense /not/ to get vaccinated, but instead to force everyone to get vaccinated. This way you benefit from the herd immunity, meaning you're unlikely to be exposed, while you don't pay the penalty of side effects, including the risk of death from complications.

Of course it's extremely selfish to do this, and if more than a handful of people are doing it they destroy the herd immunity and increases everyone's risk significantly. In some parts of the UK you watch this happening in the statistics. Parents get worried about MMR, withdraw their kids from the immunisation program, and a few years later a bunch of kids get sick and die and parents say "I wish there was something I could have done".

So parents who do this are basically the same as those people who buy a huge, practically armoured, car and then drive while drunk. They're scumbags. Maybe they're your friends, but they're still scumbags. If you pretend not to care about it you're basically saying "I value our friendship so much that I think you really should put my child's life in danger just to ease your conscience."

Re:Keeping kids healthy

[reed]

Antibacterial "soap" is not like antibiotic drugs, the main active ingredient is some form of alchohol. But good handwashing with real soap (not detergent or alcholhol) is still often better than that other stuff. Water and mechanical action gets dirt off the hands, which is where bacteria might be living.

(Though I do keep a little bottle of alchohol based hand sanitizer around, for when I really need it's sterilization properties, e.g. to use after handling truly insanitary stuff.)

REAL purpose

[VeteranNoob]

The purpose of the appendix is to flip out and kill people.

Obscure reference, but couldn't resist.

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[Fieryphoenix]

It means that human cells are far larger than bacterial cells. Think whale vs. ant.

another body part that is often yanked

[Skapare]

From TFA:

The theory led Gary Huffnagle, a University of Michigan internal medicine and microbiology professor, to wonder about the value of another body part that is often yanked: "I'll bet eventually we'll find the same sort of thing with the tonsils."

And what about the foreskin?

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[Jimmy King]

I can't tell if that was a circumcision joke or a masturbation joke.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[JewGold]

The foreskin has a very definite purpose. It keeps the head of the penis protected and moistened: an internal organ as it was designed. Also the foreskin itself contains one of the largest concentration of nerves on the body. These features help with penetration and improve sexual pleasure tremendously.

Outside of some religious circles, the practice of butchering newborns is a very new one. A recent study has shown men who have been butchered have only a fraction of the sexual pleasure as normal, intact men.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because yours is too small to pleasure a woman doesn't mean mine is worthless. I know your mom likes it. :)

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[FSWKU]

In that case, I believe "removed" would be a better term, as "yanked" used in relation to that bit of anatomy would simply describe a routine habit of most slashdotters...

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[jez9999]

There was also a study showing that foreskin removal lowers the risk of transmitting HIV. It's an unfortunate, but probably correct, fact. I think it should be emphasized that it's not some useless/evil part of the male anatomy, though.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[JewGold]

Good point, but why stop there? Cutting off the penis entirely completely eliminates the risk of all STDs. Why not do that? Also, sewing the mouth shut, removing digestive organs, and forcing your child to live off an IV drip eliminates obesity and complications from it including diabetes.

Or you could not mutilate your child, teach him to use condoms, and eat properly.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[Anonymous Coward]

The foreskin does have a purpose. It protects the enclosed organ's head from being as dried out and desensitized over time.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[king-manic]

There was also a study showing that foreskin removal lowers the risk of transmitting HIV. It's an unfortunate, but probably correct, fact. I think it should be emphasized that it's not some useless/evil part of the male anatomy, though.

HIV infection rates for an males is low. really low. Doing high risk activities make sit higher (anal sex, prostitutes, IV drugs). But I doubt the difference from 2.0% to 2.5% is really going to justify circumcision.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[squidinkcalligraphy]

Actually, the tonsils have for some time been known to provide an immune function.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[mshurpik]

What does STDs have to do with HIV?

I grew up in the Reagan-AIDS era, and it was made abundantly clear to me that AIDS is *not* an STD, along with the fact that HIV *can't* kill you.

So, cutting off a part of your body, that can't contract a disease, that can't kill you, would seem particularly absurd.

Or did my child-like mind remember the hard-learned lessons of the 1980's completely wrong?

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[Lunzo]

Or, as was mentioned by another poster modded troll (ok 90% of his post was a troll), you could use a condom. I don't think having a circumcision gives you a license to take risks. Nor do I think encouraging circumcision (or abstinence for that matter) is a good way of solving the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[king-manic]

There was also a study showing that foreskin removal lowers the risk of transmitting HIV. It's an unfortunate, but probably correct, fact. I think it should be emphasized that it's not some useless/evil part of the male anatomy, though.

Upon further investigation, it turns out that circumcision has conflicting results int he studies released and seem to show a up to 50% increase in resistance in tropical climes (from 0.001% to 0.0015%) but a increase in susceptibility in temperate climes. Likely due to the interaction of a wet penis in tropical areas increasing the permeability of the membranes/ creating breaks int he skin. In temperate climes (ironical where circumcision is most common) it leads to a increase in susceptibility.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[pnutjam]

A recent study has shown men who have been butchered have only a fraction of the sexual pleasure as normal, intact men.

Good thing my parents circumcised me then, because I probably would die from a stroke when my wife does that thing....

Seriously, how can two people compare pain or pleasure. Different people have different abilities and expectations.

Re:another body part that is often yanked

[FileNotFound]

Yes but in all cases, circumcision increases the chance of the woman becoming infected.

The hardened skin of the penis and the lack of the gliding action created by the foreskin results in vaginal tears/cracks. Semen carries large loads of HIV.

Another purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

of appendix is to produce melatonin.

Well, duh

[moosesocks]

We all know that the Appendix is the useful bit at the end of the instruction manual. Heck.... there are often several of them, all labeled in a neat alphabetical order.

And yeah.... if you pour water on it, and set it out in the sun, I'm sure it'll become a haven for bacteria.... but would you really want to do that?

I have something VERY interesting to say

[Daimanta]

If you want to read it, please refer to Appendix A

Re:I have something VERY interesting to say

[yanyan]

I swallowed a petrified hot grit that my appendix is too small to contain.

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind you, we're talking about a culture that still insists on doctor-shopping to get antibiotics for viral infections, and over-indulges in anti-bacterial wipes, plastics, etc., to the point of both compromising our own immune systems, and breeding super-bugs.

but at least they'll be American Super-Bugs.

My high school bio teach told me

[EVil Lawyer]

My high school biology teacher at an "excellent" public school told me that the function of the appendix in the olden days was to digest rocks and such that primitive humans might have digested by mistake. =)

Re:My high school bio teach told me

[cryfreedomlove]

When I had mine removed, I heard that it was for digesting cellulose, including twigs, bark, and other rough plant material. I had to give up my wood chip grazing habit. I was also sad to acknowledge that an appendicitis is curtains for a rabbit.

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[Seumas]

Who is this guy's post off-topic? It is, in fact, entirely ON TOPIC. That is, if the moderators even bothered to READ the topic.

The blurb posted on slashdot states that in the human body, there are MORE BACTERIA than there are HUMAN CELLS. Which would suggest that a minimum of 51% of the human body is made up of bacteria and only 49% (or less) of our body is made of things like . . . water, carbon and other . . . you know . . . human composition stuff.

Well thats just great...

[tit0.c]

That's just great....I had mine removed last week.

Re:Well thats just great...

[Kelsey-GrammerNazi]

>>That's just great....I had mine removed last week.

HUH??
Your biology teacher?

Bungie really does control the world...

[santiago]

So, what they're really saying is that the appendix is the Ark where the good bacteria hide out when you have to fire the intestinal Halo system to wipe out the flood of cholera.

Gross misunderstanding

[Valdrax]

Well it must not do that because long story short, a similar thing happened to me and I had to take pills full of "hibernating" bacteria to replace them because they weren't coming back.

Were you by any chance on any form of powerful antibiotics? The use of probiotics in medicine is usually for people who have been on antibiotics powerful enough to kill everything in the body like vancomycin or ciprofloxacin, including the bacteria that are supposed to help you out.

I remember learning in school that it used to be used to handle indigestible things like tree bark and whatever else dumb cavemen ate lol.

Actually, the most commonly disseminated use of the appendix is in other animals that eat a lot of cellulose like rabbits to serve a reservoir for cellulose-digesting bacteria. There has never been a belief that it has ever served this purpose for hominids, though this article suggests that it acts as bacterial reservoir for other purposes.

wretched hive

[SoyChemist]

The appendix: a wretched hive of scum and villany.

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[dmadole]

The blurb posted on slashdot states that in the human body, there are MORE BACTERIA than there are HUMAN CELLS. Which would suggest that a minimum of 51% of the human body is made up of bacteria and only 49% (or less) of our body is made of things like . . . water, carbon and other . . . you know . . . human composition stuff.

One meaning of "more bacteria than human cells" means simply that there are a larger number of bacteria than they are human cells, not a larger mass of bacteria than human cells. For example, e. coli is about 1/100 the size of a human cell. So if there was an equal number of e. coli cells and human cells in the body, it would make the mass proportion of e. coli cells about 1% not 50%.

By the way, bacteria are also made of water, carbon and other ... you now ... organic composition stuff. Humans don't have a monopoly on that composition.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Duh: Supplementary material to the subject

[GnuPooh]

Appendix: noun. "Supplementary information pertaining to, but not essential to, the completeness of a book such as a list of references, statistical tables, or explanatory matter."

Gosh, a simple Google search finds the definition, boy Slashdot has really dumbed down. :)

Re:You don't actually *need* gut bacteria

[Salgat]

When you are a nomad who depends on a digesting every nutrient you manage to get, gut-bacteria can mean the difference between life and death.

Re:You don't actually *need* gut bacteria

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes you will.

sincerely, E.Coli

Appendectomies save lives

[cryfreedomlove]

Please don't read this and think that you or your loved ones should avoid an appendectomy if you need one. Nearly all appendectomies are performed on painfully sick people who are facing certain, slow, painful death without an appendectomy.

Re:You don't actually *need* gut bacteria

[Anonymous Coward]

When you are a nomad

So in other words, never.

Re:You don't actually *need* gut bacteria

[Anonymous Coward]

My stress-induced digestive issues have resulted in an almost total lack of digestive flora. Have you ever tried to pass food that is only partly broken down? It is NOT fun. I challenge you to live a life where you are entirely dependent on enzyme-rich foods like kefir to only have to spend 3 hours in the bathroom, instead of all day. We'll see how much you don't need them.

Hmmmm...

[jwiegley]

I have often wondered about something like this. When I was young I had no food, stomach or digestive problems or symptoms at all. I had my appendix out at age 14. Then in my mid twenties I developed all sorts of digestive problems. I'm Lactose intolerant though nobody else in my family is at all (all of english/scottish/german descent). Many foods cause a good deal of stomach tension and discomfort. Yeah go ahead, chalk it up to stress. I've got a job that promises a fantastic pension, I get four months a year off, I dictate my own hours, I'm essentially my own boss and in another eight months, most likely, I cannot be fired, ever (tenure). On top of all of that I have absolutely no debt of any kind and I can save almost half my pay check. Throw in a young blond girlfriend who's cool with letting me do my own thing. Life is good. Yet the stomach is not. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that what these researchers are proposing is true and that the removal of my appendix is somehow hampering my gut from obtaining a good state.

Basically, I'm inclined to listen to what these researchers have to say. I'm a doctor but of the PhD variety. When I'm formally introduced people naturally go "What kind?" and when I say "I specialize in robotics" they're reaction is usually "Oh... not a real doctor." But philosophers were getting answers right and following sound scientific principles and methods for thousands of years while the "real" doctors were using leaches and releases humours. (though I admit the greeks are also to blame for that.)

My point of that is not that M.D.s are bad, or stupid. It's just that medical science is still in its infancy. Ignorant reasoning and religious oppression stunted its growth while mathematics, physics, chemistry etc. grew or thrived. While the physical sciences enjoyed research and growth from about 400 to 2000 years ago (depending on how much you count growth during the dark ages) the medical professional has really only been getting it right for about 100 years and the majority of that understanding has come about in the last forty years. But we still have very little understanding of the brain, the pancrease, tissue differentiation, muscular diseases, etc.

Now that M.D.s are on the right I'm keen to see how fast we progress and all of the wonderful discoveries that we will see on our lifetime.

Re:Hmmmm...

[damsa]

You might have an ulcer. Helicobacter pylori was found to cause peptic ulcers in the 1980s. http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hpylori/

Re:Hmmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just thought I'd reply even though this is now really old and no one will probably read the comment.

But a few years ago, I had my appendix removed and a few months later I found that my digestion area looked quite large, as in from the outside - I don't think I gained weight, it just looked inflated.
About a year or so later, I developed intestinal problems, basically I produce a lot of gas now. Sick, I know. But thank God it doesn't smell.

I started eating the Activia yoghurt which helped for a short while and REALLY fixed the problem, but soon later it has now returned.
I'm pretty sure my digestion problems are due to the missing appendix, as I've long suspected. But the doctor simply dismisses my ideas without looking into it any further.

I have discovered a use for earlobes!

[HornWumpus]

Only on some girls granted. A public erogenous zone is a damn useful thing.

Creationist axiom: There are no vestigial organs.

[HornWumpus]

I suspect the author of the paper is a bible thumper with an ax to grind.

Purpose?

[Brandybuck]

Does everything have to have a purpose? That's far too deterministic a philosophy for my tastes. Maybe the appendix doesn't have a purpose, is not part of a plan, has nothing whatsoever to do with survival of the fittest. Maybe it's just a quirk of intestinal development. Maybe its benign enough that there was no reason [sic] to cull it from the gene pool.

Re:Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Purpose/why in biology means why would evolution produced it - it's a biology lingo, not some creationist concept.

On issue at hand, while appendix may seem irrelevant to evolution/selection, producing and maintaining the organ has its cost, and so they are asking what the benefit is, because otherwise it's a dead cost and evolution would have dumped it.

Re:Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then that must mean freckles have a purpose, otherwise they would have been dumped due to the high evolutionary cost of maintaining them.

Msft ran a tax scam in the USA also

[walterbyrd]

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/mm1297.08.html

Can I sue now?

[Jafafa Hots]

Docs removed my perfectly good appendix while rummaging around in me for other reasons. Like a TV repairman who closes up your set but still has "extra parts" laying out.

I have all kinds of digestive problems 20 years later, can I sue?

Free rider problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why get vaccinated when most other people do? Let some other sucker run this risk of getting sick form the vaccination but provides a buffer for you from the disease.

Re:Free rider problem.

[lahvak]

In that case, make sure that you don't travel too much.

Science finally catches up with the rest of us.

[slashdotard]

I don't get it. Why are they finally getting it? We idiots have been telling them this for ages and they just kept saying it's a useless little wiggly thing.

Did someone substitute their koolaid with iced tea or something? Are they off their meds? What happened?

I had two

[huckamania]

Confused my regular doctors no end. Luckily, both appendixes went bad at nearly the same time. The one on my left was found after they looked at the one on the right and decided it couldn't have caused all of the problems (high fever, hallucinations, etc). The surgeon saved them in a jar and asked if he could have them. Of course I let him, he had saved my life.

Something good to know, if you ever have a pain on the left side and someone tells you it can't be your appendix.

Purpose = Fundamentalism

[arth1]

Does everything have to have a purpose?

For fundamentalist christians, yes, it does. Creationism would be meaningless if their god created flaws.

Follow the money trail of studies finding purposes for useless vestiges, and you'll quickly conclude that this usually is pseudo-science, seeking to prove a spiritual opinion with biased "research".
It would surprise me very much if the drivers for this "study" didn't turn out to be christians.

--
*Art

Re:Purpose = Fundamentalism

[Brandybuck]

You mean God is a utilitarian? He can't create something that is without purpose? He can't create a flaw? Everything he does must be understandable by man?

I understand that this is a common viewpoint among creationists, but I was asking about evolutionists. Why are evolutionists always seeking explanation and purpose? I'm not just talking about this article, because I've seen this elsewhere.

Hmmmm

[ddusza]

And here I thought it was going to be a discussion on books or something...

Purpose of Appendix Believed Found

[noz]

It contains your soul?

It makes perfect sense...

[NeuroManson]

Considering how many bacteriological critters we have living in our guts, and how many of them (much like the appendix) can actually kill us if any of them go extremely off balance. Appendicitis can be considered as a microcosmic effect on the same scale. So perhaps at worst, what it really amounts to, is an appendix blockage? Therefore, the probabke way to cure appendicitis is perhaps similar to an angioplasty? Hell, an angioplasty balloon being fed up one's ass in a general anaethetically numbed non surgical procedure is probably preferable to many, if not all surgery fearing people.

Re:You don't actually *need* gut bacteria

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Bedouin, you insensitive clod.

Uhm, yeah...

[WheelDweller]

But haven't they know this about the appendix for like 10-20 years? There used to be a lot of 'vestigial' organs that no one knew what they did; now, not so many. This seems like old news, to me...

duh

[m2943]

The purpose of the appendix is to provide job security and a steady income for surgeons. That's why God put it there. God loves doctors. What did you think it was there for?

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is parent modded troll? This is a factual, researched statement.

yogurt

[jonadab]

I've heard (from an experienced RN, for whatever that's worth) that if your natural flora are all killed off for some reason (e.g., aggressive medical treatments such as chemo), one way to facilitate the return of your gastrointestinal tract to normal is to eat a cup of yogurt.

Of course, yogurt does not contain all of the types of bacteria that your digestive system normally has in it. For instance, the lower intestinal tract normally contains escherichia coli, but grocery stores probably wouldn't be selling yogurt if it contained e. coli. Perhaps the e. coli are preserved in the appendix? Or in small numbers throughout the colon? An interesting question.

I'd be interested in seeing research on which types of gut flora you need _specifically_ (as in, other types can't do their job for them in their absense), and how each of those types gets restored after an eradication incident.

Intelligent Design?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can there be a "purpose" for an organ if there is no creator of the organ (or the human in which it is installed)? Drink up, you cock-smoking arrogant atheist gasbags?

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[PastaLover]

He mentioned george bush in his post. Doesn't have much to do with this story...

Scientific papers

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Am I the only one who thought it was talking about those last sections in many scientific papers where the authors mathematically prove their results, add supporting data, etc?

Re:Brace yourselves people, evolutionist onslaught

[Dimensio]

heh, and here I was about to say that here was where the evolutionists would start hemming and hawing about how they've been using the appendix as proof,

Please reference an "evolutionist" citing the appendix as "proof" of the theory of evolution.

Dawkins? You reading this?

[pkphilip]

Richard Dawkins probably won't be too happy with this information. Dawkins has contended that the human appendix was an example of "unintelligent design". Perhaps he needs to rethink that theory.

Re:So we're all scumbags ..

[smellsofbikes]

As dmadole said, the issue is bacterial vs. human cell size. Generally, people have about 1-2% of their body weight consisting of bacteria -- on the order of about a kilogram of them -- but the number of bacteria in there is about the same to maybe 5-10 times the number of cells in the person's body. Estimates for how many cells people have range from 3-50 trillion; estimates for how many bacteria the average person has are in the same general range, running up to 100 trillion. (Ew.)

Many bacteria aren't even floating around, but live their entire lives within cells: most of the mycobacterial diseases (leprosy, chlamydia, some types of pneumonia) have bacterial cell lives that are necessarily contained within the cells for their whole lives, with hundreds or thousands of bacteria in a single cell. The ultimate expression of this might be mitochondria, which look a lot like bacteria that have been retained in cells for over a billion years and are now necessary for cellular survival. Part of the reason that there's a difference between white and dark meat in birds is that the brown meat has so many mitochondria per cell they change the color.