You may have heard that astronauts have their appendix removed before leaving Earth. After all, people say you can live without this organ because it serves no purpose, but how much truth is there in ...

The appendix has long been dismissed as an organ that has outlived its usefulness in human evolution. But new research suggests it may play an active — and detrimental — role in the development of ...

We’re all familiar with the fact that we have an organ called an appendix—and more importantly that it can cause some scary trips to the ER. But does anyone know what the eff an appendix actually is?

For years, the appendix carried a reputation as the body’s most pointless organ. Doctors often removed it without hesitation, and textbooks labeled it a vestigial structure—something our ancestors ...

Julie Pomerantz, wildlife veterinarian and program officer for the Wildlife Trust¿s North American Conservation Medicine Initiative, offers the following explanation: As a specific anatomic structure, ...

The appendix gets a lot of bad press. Yes, occasionally it becomes inflamed and threatens our health, but which other organs can say they don't? Widely regarded as defunct or even useless, the fact ...

Appendix cancer once had a reputation as one of the rarest forms of cancer. Many were unaware of the condition entirely. And when doctors did encounter it, it was almost exclusively in older people ...