The Evolution Of The Appendix Solved?
Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 22:21
in Psychology & Sociology
The lowly appendix used to get no respect and was simply regarded as a useless evolutionary artifact but two years ago researchers at Duke University Medical Center proposed that it actually serves a critical function as a safe haven where good bacteria could hang out until they were needed to repopulate the gut, like after a nasty case of diarrhea. Now a group writing in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology claim something even more aggressive; that Charles Darwin was wrong and the appendix is a whole lot more than an evolutionary remnant. Not only does it appear in nature much more frequently than previously acknowledged, but it has been around much longer than anyone had suspected. read more