Science

13222 readers

62 users here now

Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Your appendix is not, in fact, useless. This anatomy professor explains (www.npr.org)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It turns out that the appendix appears to have two related functions. The first function is supporting the immune system. The appendix has a high concentration of immune tissue, so it's acting to help the immune system fight any bad things in the gut.

The second function that it serves is what we refer to as the safe house. So this was a hypothesis that was put forward by a team from Duke University in 2007. And they argued that the appendix may serve as a safe reservoir for the beneficial gut bacteria that we have.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

Strange that dynamic system that has to adapt to a wide selection of rapidly changing pathogens under various environmental conditions would be extremely complicated.

Go figure...