We don't really know what gut bacteria are except there are millions of them and we will be screwed without them. Researchers have come up with remarkable relationships between them and with us but we aren't clever enough to come up with a pat description of what they do beyond, well, they help us digest stuff.
The above segues to the appendix since it appears the organ isn't so useless after all and is a good friend to helpful gut bacteria. (Science Daily: Appendix may have important function, new research suggests)
You really have to love science to get intrigued by the disparities in the configuration of the appendix in different animals but so they do.
This is an illustration of the seven cecal character states included in this study: (A) Appendix-like cecum of a common wombat (Vombatus ursinus); (B) Spiral-shaped cecum of a common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula); (C) Elongated, tapering cecum of a rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus); (D) Cylindrical cecum of a North American beaver (Castor canadensis); (E) Paired ceca (or colonic appendages) of a rock hyrax (Procavia habessinica); (F) Rounded cecum of an orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus); (G) Absent cecum in a bush-tailed phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa). The cecum and appendix are oriented toward the top of each drawing, with the appendix (if present) demarcated from the cecum by a line. A cecal appendix is most frequently found in association with spiral (B) and tapering (C) and cecal shapes. Images redrawn from Stevens and Hume (1995) and Hume (1999).
Credit: Brent Adrian, Senior Research Associate, Midwestern University
The above segues to the appendix since it appears the organ isn't so useless after all and is a good friend to helpful gut bacteria. (Science Daily: Appendix may have important function, new research suggests)
You really have to love science to get intrigued by the disparities in the configuration of the appendix in different animals but so they do.
This is an illustration of the seven cecal character states included in this study: (A) Appendix-like cecum of a common wombat (Vombatus ursinus); (B) Spiral-shaped cecum of a common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula); (C) Elongated, tapering cecum of a rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus); (D) Cylindrical cecum of a North American beaver (Castor canadensis); (E) Paired ceca (or colonic appendages) of a rock hyrax (Procavia habessinica); (F) Rounded cecum of an orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus); (G) Absent cecum in a bush-tailed phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa). The cecum and appendix are oriented toward the top of each drawing, with the appendix (if present) demarcated from the cecum by a line. A cecal appendix is most frequently found in association with spiral (B) and tapering (C) and cecal shapes. Images redrawn from Stevens and Hume (1995) and Hume (1999).
- SD
Read the linked article for the mechanism by which the researchers came to their conclusion but here's the punchline:
They discovered that the appendix has evolved independently in several mammal lineages, over 30 separate times, and almost never disappears from a lineage once it has appeared. This suggests that the appendix likely serves an adaptive purpose. Looking at ecological factors, such as diet, climate, how social a species is, and where it lives, they were able to reject several previously proposed hypotheses that have attempted to link the appendix to dietary or environmental factors. Instead, they found that species with an appendix have higher average concentrations of lymphoid (immune) tissue in the cecum. This finding suggests that the appendix may play an important role as a secondary immune organ. Lymphatic tissue can also stimulate growth of some types of beneficial gut bacteria, providing further evidence that the appendix may serve as a "safe house" for helpful gut bacteria.
- SD
It appears the appendix isn't just good for you but extremely good and here's some weak Rockhouse science. My appendix was removed due to appendicitis when I was about ten. Decades later my gall bladder got whacked so who knows if that's related. None of my sibs went through an appendectomy and I've heard no report from any of them about a whacked gall bladder so there's my science.
Ed: are you seriously trying to blame the 'rents for getting your gall bladder whacked?
Please do try to keep a good grip on the steering wheel, Stirling, as this isn't the Doctor Phil Show. This was back in the time when a doctor might prescribe medicine over the phone and one damn nearly croaked Doc that way.
By the time my ol' Dad got back from work, Doc was so far gone there was no question of it. He and my ol' Mother got him loaded into the car and went immediately to hospital. He was in intensive care for some while after that and they didn't tell us much about the details but we knew it was bad.
If he didn't make it, I wouldn't be telling you. Fuhgedaboudit. The time was different and a fifty-year perspective yields remarkable things.
Insofar as gut bacteria are helpful to my digestion and politics won't do anything except make digestion worse, I rest my case. Gut bacteria are, in fact, more interesting than politics.
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