According to a new study by researchers at Midwestern University, the appendix might serve an important bodily function. According to the study, led by Heather F. Smith, an associate professor at ...

It was the first day of spring break in 1992 in Phoenix, and 12-year-old Heather Smith was excited for her family's upcoming ski trip. But before Smith and her family had even packed their snow pants, ...

Creationists will have a field day with this one. Turns out that Charles Darwin was wrong about the appendix. Darwin believed the organ didn’t do anything useful, so it might have been vestigial — an ...

The human appendix, a narrow pouch that projects off the cecum in the digestive system, has a notorious reputation for its tendency to become inflamed (appendicitis), often resulting in surgical ...

Traditionally the appendix is the blockbuster of useless body parts – a leader in purposelessness ahead of wisdom teeth and the tailbone. However, a new study suggests the appendix isn’t vestigial at ...

Most of us are familiar with the appendix, that worm-shaped tube at the beginning of the large intestine, even if we can’t remember which side of the abdomen it resides. (Hint: It’s not the left side.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center say that the function of the frequently discarded appendix, an organ often credited with little importance and often dismissed as having no significant ...

in 2007, Associate Professor William Parker of Duke University School of Medicine discovered that the appendix was used as a 'reservoir of gut microbiota.' Bacteria such as lactic acid bacteria and ...

The appendix may not be useless after all. The worm-shaped structure found near the junction of the small and large intestines evolved 32 times among mammals, according to a new study. The finding ...

Nobody's really sure why we humans have an appendix, and some biology textbooks still refer to the pinkie-size organ, located near the juncture of the large and small intestine, as a "vestigial organ.