Wednesday, February 19, 2020

New discoveries in human body--I always smile at this

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/new-discoveries-in-human-anatomy--67055

I love science articles. Particularly those of "new thinking," or "new discoveries." And then eventually, evolution and not God is credited.

"The brain’s drain
The lymphatic system, a body-wide network of vessels that drains fluids and removes waste from tissues and organs, was long-believed to be absent from the brain. Early reports of lymphatic vessels in the meninges, the membrane coating the brain, date as far back as the 18th century—but these findings were met with skepticism. Only recently has this view been overturned, after a 2015 report of lymphatic vessels in mouse meninges and the 2012 discovery of the so-called glymphatic system, an interconnected network of glial cells that facilitates the circulation of fluid throughout mouse brains. In 2017, neuroimaging work revealed evidence for such lymphatic vessels in human meninges.

Fluid-filled spaces
In 2018, researchers reported that the space between cells was a collagen-lined, fluid-filled network, which they dubbed the interstitium. They proposed that this finding, which emerged from close examinations of tissue from patients’ bile ducts, bladders, digestive tracts, and skin, may help scientists better understand how tumors spread through the body. The team also called the interstitium a newly-discovered organ, but many dismissed this claim. “Most biologists would be reticent to put the moniker of an ‘organ’ on microscopic uneven spaces between tissues that contain fluid,” Anirban Maitra, a pathologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Center, told The Scientist last year. . .

The fabella makes a comeback

The fabella, a tiny bone located in a tendon behind the knee, is becoming more common in humans, according to a study published last spring. After reviewing 58 studies on fabella prevalence in 27 different countries, researchers reported that people were approximately 3.5 times more likely to have the little bone in 2018 than 1918. The cause of this trend remains an open question, but the authors suggest that changes in muscle mass and bone length—driven by increased diet quality in many parts of the world—could be one explanation."

Imagine that. Diet changes and bone appears.

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