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 ...

MINNEAPOLIS — Stephen Colbert is away from late-night TV following emergency surgery last week — the comedian's appendix burst. That made us wonder: What does the appendix do for our body? And why are ...

Marisa is an assistant editor at Discover. She received her master’s degree in health, environment & science reporting from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. In a previous life, ...

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 ...

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 ...

A very rare type of cancer is on a sharp upward trajectory in younger generations, and no one knows why. Recent research in ...

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.