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New Research Suggests the Appendix Has a Purpose After All (qz.com)
The appendix is an organ thought to have gone the way of our wisdom teeth and body hair: At one point we all needed them, now people can get by just fine without them. However, it turns out, at least the appendix has some purpose in the body. From a report: Scientists, though, have never been certain what the appendix used to do -- and if it is still, in fact, useless. On Jan. 9, a team of researchers led by scientists at Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine published a review study proposing an answer: the appendix is a secondary immune function that both catalyzes immune cell responses and floods your gut with beneficial bacteria when they've been depleted. And it still plays that role, in a limited fashion, in human body function."We can function okay without it, but the appendix does provide some degree of immunity and beneficial bacteria,â Heather Smith, an anatomist and lead author of the paper said.
Not news.
The appendix has MANY subtle jobs rather than one obvious one, that's why you can do without it.
I've been telling people for 20+ years after reading it online that the appendix is PARTLY a store of stomach bacteria etc. to help reseed the stomach in the case of it being flushed during illness.
People with appendices recover better from a bout of stomach flu and are less likely to get knock-on infections that those without. It's been in the medical literature for decades, at least, and been on this site at least twice I'm sure.
It's also not the appendix's only job.
This is not "news" at all.
You mean to tell me that something attached to other organs, that has blood vessels, that has metabolizing and reproducing cells, that has multiple cell types, that has nerve endings, actually has a purpose? Gee whiz next thing you'll be telling me that the tailbone has no function and we'd be A-OK if instead of something hitting your tailbone it hits the end of your spinal cord directly instead.
Now tell me why men have nipples :)
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Snap!
I've read about this role for the appendix for at least 5 years? At LEAST.
Here's an early article I found on the subject https://blogs.scientificameric... - and if SciAm had it in 2012, it had to be relatively established information, they're not anywhere near cutting-edge reportage.
And here's a Discover magazine thing saying the same thing in 2008: http://discovermagazine.com/20...
-Styopa
this has been suggested for several decades already, and back then it only took a microscope inspection of a removed appendix and a bit of thinking, to suggest its intended function. But yeah, go capitalize on your "new" discovery now.
for useful info.
Scientists ALREADY KNEW that was one of the functions of your appendix, to be a source of good bacteria for your gut, many, many, many years ago. THIS SITE NEEDS NEW MANAGEMENT ASAP!
Emphasis mIne.
It's a place to move stuff that is no longer needed in the new edition, but took a long time to develop.
Hey, maybe that's the same way nature is using it...
You fucked up the quotes again.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
that any unnecessary surgical procedure can render an organ as vestigial when there are conditions in which the organ thrives or fails. Bodily hair builds static energy and emits from folicles that assist in sweating yet women wax it away without a care. Just read how much more Immune System presence there is in the human body; parallel to the blood circulatory system yet needs footwork to pump since lymphcgannels dont have a heart. 100 years ago anyone with a swolen Thymus gland was ruled cosmetically unsightly and entered into radiation therapies, yet the result proved loss of Immune function despite large glands proved a functioning organ.
Can people imagine now today? Yea, now today the same treatments are being done with only more techknowlogical precision to commit the same bastardry of unnecessary procedures and replace organs and glands with lifetime drug prescriptions! I met a recent man who had his tonsils removed and his Thuyroid glands removed: lifetime dependence on injections t4 and t5 when all he needed was oxygen therapies and potassium iodide supplements.
Transhumanisn is retardation and drug addict culture rolled into one. The dealers are being invented as we read and write now.
So? does this mean a mass lawsuit for all the people who have had it removed for no reason in the past?
This is malpractice on a very large scale, if you look at it.
Right?
At least 20 years I think... They could have saved a lot of money and just asked me instead of performing this crazy-ass study of something most doctors have known for decades. And I'm not even a doctor.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Who didn't know this? I am waiting for the slashdot article "New Research suggests heart responsible for blood circulation. Oh yeah, and the circulation of blood .. that's a thing now too."
Try shaving your ass!
Let me know how yo make out.
The appendix is where the soul is.
The people who have had theirs removed....those poor, poor bastards....well, you shouldn't trust them from then on.
So? does this mean a mass lawsuit for all the people who have had it removed for no reason in the past?
This is malpractice on a very large scale, if you look at it.
Right?
They had it removed for no reason... apart from they wanted the risk of anesthesia and needed to spend some money?
Last time I went to the doctor's, they didn't say "let remove your tonsils and appendix because you don't need them!"
wut, its 2017 slashdot....
I had mine removed because it RUPTURED.
So this makes me wonder if people without their Appendix have a different lifespan than those that keep it. I tried to google for the answer, but I came up short. Anyone know of any studies on this subject?
If you thought you knew this before a study like this came out, then you're as bad as all the other gullible sheep out there, because there was not a large body of good evidence to point to to support that opinion.
The study in the Qartz article is a review study, looking at hundreds of other studies. It's an extremely important kind of study for solidifying our understanding of how things work, and frankly in my opinion they often don't get enough attention because people think they know these things already. You did not know these things already. You had a couple of articles that you'd seen before that suggested maybe the appendix isn't as useless as doctors used to think, but you didn't have a body of evidence that you could point to to prove that fact. Now you do. That's the importance of the study.
Of course, in typical fashion the SlashDot summary woefully misrepresents it as a study saying "Hey guys! I found this brand new thing that other people have already found! Check it out!", which of course that isn't what the study was doing at all.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Appendix is where the lawyers put all the escape clauses, in fine print too.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Crackle, POP! There goes my appendix.
"You fucked up the quotes again."
Oh, it's far worse than that. manishs/msmash endeavored to finally inject his now recent-to-him Third World Voodoo into Slashdot.
"Osteopaths" are Bunkum. Even worse than "Chiropractors". (There is a lot there in common with Commercial SM. The infliction of pain for profit.)
That he is a thoroughly awful Editor is no longer in question. That a stop must finally be put to him, is.
Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine
The appendectomy at one point was a standard surgical procedure performed on many not too long ago, on my parents generation.
"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail" attitude surgeons where cutting away rudimentary flesh left over from the absolutely positively proved human evolution, doing us all a favor.
Maybe not so fast, because you do not fully understand something does not mean you can go and fuck around with it nilly willy.
There are many examples of "accepted medical practice" is disproven in medical scientific literature, but is kept alive by old habits.
A single cell has billions of "parts" much less is understood that is being let on. Medical science is mainly behavioral studies and 99.99% guesswork. Complete understanding to the molecular/atomic level is just not there. Yet the high salaries and snooty attitudes prevail, when these charlatans have a very superficial grasp of reality.
Medications are approved for diseases not fully understood by medications not fully understood. Not much better than homeopathy.
Watch the fuck out for yourself.
body hair will help you detect insects around your skin so you can squish them. Biting insects are a vector for disease, so it is of great benefit to be able to detect them more quickly before they can bite. The great majority of people still live in environments with biting insects, so body hair is still of great biological utility.
The purpose is store sliced carrot. Haven't you noticed that when you vomit there is always carrot in there, even if it has been months since you ate any?
My kingdom for mod points...
Everyone who trusts God's Word enough to know we were created, and didn't evolve from microbes already knew this. ... thanks for catching up. Keep going. You're well on your way to realizing that junk DNA isn't actually junk.
So, once again
I thought foreskins regularly went down your throat.
stupid science; ruined the joke.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm usually on the lookout for my shoes...
That way I know it's almost over.
Also, that I need to buy new shoes...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Butter, brown rice, and egg yolks are bad for you. No, good. No, bad again. Argh it's so hard to make up our minds!
Talk about wasting money on a stupid research with a more than obvious result. And I would not be surprise if this "research" was paid with tax-payer money.
Hey, I'm staring a $10 billion research that will finally verify that water is wet. Anybody would like to sign up to work on it?
You seem to have different definitions of determined and implemented than I do, though there can be some confusion between sex and gender as well. Your sex is determined by your chromosomes. What you seem to be describing are physical sexual characteristics which are implemented about the time you seem to indicate. Now gender means different things to different people, and describe behaviors as well as physical characteristics.
"Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine"
Osteopathy is quack medicine!
How dare you pollute Slashdot in this manner?
There used to be standards here, or was that before Trump?
How about "It turned out you had ovarian cysts, not appendicitis, but we decided to take it out anyway."
Play Command HQ online
Yep. It definitely has the purpose to limit the surpopulation !
That's nature at work !
aaaaaaa
If you're planning on spending the winter in Antarctica, and depending on your nationality, then yes, they'll remove your perfectly healthy appendix. And possibly your wisdom teeth, if a dentist thinks they could cause a problem.
Good riddance.
I for one welcome our carrot-vomiting overlords.
This is not new. University in Scotland announced this two or three years ago!