from the it's-as-clear-as-the-tubarial-glands-in-a-person's-face dept.
Scientists Discover 'New' Organ Hidden Within Your Face:
You'd think that existing exclusively within the human body would give way to a complete knowledge of the organs hidden within. Instead, we're constantly discovering new parts of the weird and glorious biological machine we each call home. The latest in these discoveries are the "tubarial glands," a pair of small organs responsible for producing saliva.
Oncologists from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam were conducting cancer research earlier this year when they happened upon the "new" glands. Radiation oncologist Wouter Vogel, oral and maxillofacial surgeon Matthijs Valstar, and their team have been working to improve the research community's understanding of cancers occurring in the head and neck. They were using positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) scans—known for helping to track metastasizing prostate cancer—to study patients' mouth, throat, and other cancers when the scans' radioactive glucose lit up an unfamiliar part of the face.
Scan after scan, the same part of the patients' faces continued to glow. Exactly 100 consecutive patients and cadavers possessed the same strange bright spot, prompting Vogel and Valstar to investigate. Contrary to what they expected, the spot wasn't an anomaly—it was a whole new organ consisting of two salivary glands.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 31 2022, @03:25AM (10 children)
No, I would not have thought there'd be anything that major still unknown about the human body. Sure, there are still questions about what exactly is the purpose of the tonsils and appendix. Recently, I've read that the appendix can serve as a refuge for beneficial bacteria when the animal is suffering from an illness that must be purged from the digestive system. And I seem to recall that even the spleen was a bit of a mystery not too long ago.
Of course aging is also still not totally understood. Why can't bodies maintain themselves indefinitely? Some jellyfish apparently can, but higher animals that for whatever reason do not succumb to the many perils of the environment and competition with others all eventually die anyway, of old age. I speculate that despite the seeming waste and loss of losing experienced, mature adults, for the species as a whole the turnover is worth it. Frequently building brand new individuals has a lot of upsides.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31 2022, @04:57AM
There is a parallel with forgetting, which "forces" the brain to generalize, or abstract, from experience. We also somewhat adopt the same mechanism with elected government. Creative destruction.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Saturday December 31 2022, @07:23AM (1 child)
Regarding aging and reproduction as an evolutionary phenomenon, rebuilding from scratch is Just Better. There's a reason software engineers reinvent the wheel, or we build/generate things from a pristine base rather than modifying an existing thing in place. That we reboot OSes rather than patch them as they're running. That it's easier to re-cook a recipe from scratch than fix it midway in the general case. That it's easier to carve a new block of wood than repair one poorly carved. This phenomenon did not arise in so many contexts by coincidence.
Given the stateful nature of reality, any learning agent will discover that it's easier to repeat state transitions from a known base state than try to derive a path for an infinite number of possible intermediate states.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31 2022, @01:52PM
Also from the body and immune system's point of view after X cell divisions and "mutations" it's a lot harder to tell which cells are the OK cells, which are the OK mutants and which are the ones to blow away (e.g. cancer cells)... Especially when the immune system has also undergone similar changes.
Some animals like elephants and whales have lots of extra stuff to reduce mutations ( https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325178 [medicalnewstoday.com] ). But humans don't have as much of these protections. If you can somehow add those without too many bad side-effects then maybe humans can live longer without getting cancer etc. Without such stuff most of the longevity stuff people are promoting and promising would be bullshit/useless - to live longer you need new cells[1]. To make new cells you need cell divisions. Each time there are cell divisions there's a chance for mutations. So even if you extend telomeres there could be more cell divisions but it doesn't solve the error/mutation/cancer problem. You need to extend the telomeres AND reduce the odds of cancer.
One workaround proposed could be to store stem cells from when you're young as a reserve for when you're old. BUT what if by the time you're 80 your 2 year old reserve cells think most of the cells in your 80 year old body are faulty mutants in comparison and should be eliminated? There could be another reason why immune systems are less aggressive when you're older.
Car analogy - it's like an old car - if you get rid of all the rusty parts there might be no usable car left... 😉
[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25458-blood-of-worlds-oldest-woman-hints-at-limits-of-life/ [newscientist.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31 2022, @02:00PM
Actually it wasn't that long ago that scientists rediscovered a "new part": https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/scientists-somehow-just-discovered-a-new-system-of-vessels-in-our-brains/542037/ [theatlantic.com]
https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/surprise-scientists-discover-the-human-brain-has-a-lymphatic-system/ [bigthink.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 31 2022, @02:36PM
Why can't bodies maintain themselves indefinitely?
Every time a cell divides, it loses a little genetic material. When it reaches the Telomere [wikipedia.org] It can't divide any more and just dies. Without Telomeres your lifespan would likely be much shorter, you would die of cancer at a very young age, and/or your species would go extinct from the mutations.
Someone else posted a very good programming example.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Saturday December 31 2022, @04:19PM (4 children)
That would be a positive thing only for the super rich. For the rest of us, it would be Hell on Earth. Half (or more) of our societal control structures STILL can't fathom the necessity of population controls, causing unnecessary suffering through overpopulation (which only benefits the super rich). Human life would come to a spectacularly painful end if we were immortal.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ChrisMaple on Sunday January 01 2023, @01:20AM (3 children)
Being maintained indefinitely is not immortality. There are still accidents and suicide.
Much of suffering in life is due to poor health, and most who can stay in good health have ample opportunities to live a happy life. Staying in good health (maintenance) is a benefit regardless of wealth.
Overpopulation -- by what standard? If overpopulation means widespread starvation, how does that benefit the rich? If overpopulation means unavoidable widespread pollution, how does that benefit the rich? If overpopulation means unstoppable pandemics, how does that benefit the rich?
If overpopulation means more people to be enslaved, nobody is better off, and only mentally diseased people promote slavery.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday January 01 2023, @01:22PM (1 child)
I will also point out that one of the main drivers for people to have kids is to "leave a legacy", or to know that they live on through their children after they die, like their ancestors through them. Then of course the fact that as you age you can't do what you used to, and you need others to take over/assist,
If people became immortal, and also retained a healthy quality of life (or eternal youth), I suspect that there would be a lot fewer children being born,
I guess if technology came into being that would allow immortality/eternal youth, it could be offered to people in exchange for sterilisation. Along the lines of "You can be immortal, or have kids, but not both".
That should not result in a population explosion, although I wonder how immortality would affect peoples personalities (more narcissism and/or selfishness?)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 01 2023, @06:21PM
A thousand years have come and gone
But time has passed me by
Stars stopped in the sky
Frozen in an everlasting view
Waiting for the world to end
Weary of the night
Praying for the light
Prison of the lost — Xanadu
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Sunday January 01 2023, @02:20PM
In the 70's and 80's (which was the last time I checked on the definition until now), immortality was concerned largely (if not solely) with the aging process. You are correct that the focus has changed.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31 2022, @06:16AM
Was hoping it was more boobies. Was disappointed -1