https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/new-organ-human-body-interstitium-cancer-skin-scientists-discovery-new-york-a8275851.html
Scientists have identified a new human organ hiding in plain sight, in a discovery they hope could help them understand the spread of cancer within the body.
Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the “interstitium”.
These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins.
Woah, this is so fascinating. Essentially this went 'unnoticed' for so many thousands of years because these are basically fluid filled sacs, and most invasive medical procedures involve draining away excess fluids. In this case, that meant most evidence of the existence of this 'organ' were drained away most of the time during surgery.
Double fascinating that these act like fluid-based shock absorbers, in a way that is reminiscent of proposed ways to combat geforces in fast vehicles/space ships by surrounding the pilot in a liquid. The human body is so incredibly complex and so amazing to learn about.
It'll be interesting to learn what other parts of the body we've missed over the years, I imagine we'll learn a lot more about brain-related structures in the next few decades especially.
All these years gone by, and even now we still find things about ourselves that we previously did not know of or fully understand. Makes you wonder what other discoveries still lie before us, in plain sight
So lets say you don't have this or it doesn't function for some absurd hypothetical reason regardless of how silly it is
what would this mean for you?
The fact that we discover an entirely new organ with all of our current technology that was hiding before is pretty outrageous in a good way, re-reading the article intro makes the brain do an uncontrollable "WTF" reaction every time.
Well considering this is an organ that was literally just technically discovered, there's not going to be much scientific data on this yet.
Though if I had to take a few guesses based on my limited medical knowledge, I'd guess that you'd be overall less durable, as in easily take damage from blunt forces, more prone to internal bleeding/rupturing, more likely to develope certain cancers, potentially impaired balance? It's hard to say, we'll know more as it's studied over time.
so that's why so many people survive from falling such great height without their internal organ getting serious damage
This reminds me of a documentary about a group of expert researches who descended into the challenger deep and noticed entirely new species. And instead of the usual exhaustive description of what the species are like, the announcer said "yep, there are these red crabs down there"
How exactly? Are you saying that about my comment? I was just humoring the guy about a nearly impossible hypothetical situation about an organ that was literally just discovered that we have no knowledge on. I'm not a doctor and never claimed to be. Feel free to give a more apt description yourself.
My interaction on this forum is continuously proving my utter ineptitude at keeping a friendly conversation with a stranger without pissing someone off, I apologize and will snip my post. It is not what I meant whatsoever but I do not want to drag this out by frantically explaining myself. Sorry that I came across as a complete asshole as usual.
Oh I'm sorry too my dude. That just came off like it was an attack for not being descriptive enough when I didn't have any more information to go off of to do so. Though in re-reading that maybe you meant that in a good way as in it wasn't as boring of a description as the usual stuff is. Sorry too dude, Facepunch as a whole has seemingly became a lot more competitive and snappy lately, where nobody is allowed to have an opinion without a well layed-out thesis to back it up. It gets to you after a while. Sorry for being snappy
Made me feel weird. Man, what a world.
Wasn't another organ discovered last year too? Some kind of filament that connected or covered the intestines?
Could it be possible this organ is a possible hint towards evolution? More than likely it's been in the human body for it's entire existence, but imagine if this organ developed due to something the humans do all the time.
Might not be human only. Mammals are pretty similar, I'd certainly expect it to occur in apes.
That's not really how evolution works.
Yeah i wanted to ask about this because if humans have it its likely that other animals also do, right?
Chimps and Gorillas would be the best place to look first, more work for the rhesus. All mammals should have similar organ systems in terms of function but what would be really interesting is if dolphins and whales have it too.
After reading the paper, I don't really see them claiming this is a new "organ" - there's a reason the title of their paper is "Structure and Distribution of an Unrecognized Interstitium in Human Tissues" (emphasis mine), and it's because an interstitial space (or interstitium) is simply an intercellular space. Calling a new organ "Interstitium" would be a disservice to existing medical terminology. That doesn't mean it's not cool research, but it seems more like this is simply furthering our understanding of how the submucosa communicates with the lymphatic system, rather than revolutionizing our entire understand of the body.
I'm not an expert on histology, though, so I don't want to downplay this too much, but I think The Independent might've taken that title and run with it.
Tons of news media organizations and journalists alter the reality of things because things are boring
I also hate how they have "THOUSANDS OF YEARS" in the title, despite the fact that beyond 100 years ago science has been not only insanely slow but almost exclusively reserved to low tech solutions
Makes me wonder if I'm more susceptible to weird stuff since I've had a major surgery, they cut me from diaphragm to belly button. Sure they popped plenty of those...
You're not.
You might be thinking of the mesentery, which we've known about for ages but was only recently reclassified as a single organ.
We keep finding all these neat new organs inside our own bodies, and I still have no idea what my appendix is for other than to plot my untimely demise.
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