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Medicine Science

Scientists Identify New Organ In Humans (livescience.com) 112

Posted by BeauHD from the gut-feeling dept.
Scientists have classified a new organ called the mesentery, which connects a person's small and large intestines to the abdominal wall and anchors them in place, according to the Mayo Clinic. Until recently, it was thought of a number of distinct membranes by most scientists. It was none other than Leonardo da Vinci who identified the membranes as a single structure, according to a recent review. Live Science reports: In the review, lead author Dr. Calvin Coffey, a professor of surgery at the University of Limerick's Graduate Entry Medical School in Ireland, and colleagues looked at past studies and literature on the mesentery. Coffey noted that throughout the 20th century, anatomy books have described the mesentery as a series of fragmented membranes; in other words, different mesenteries were associated with different parts of the intestines. More recent studies looking at the mesentery in patients undergoing colorectal surgery and in cadavers led Coffey's team to conclude that the membrane is its own, continuous organ, according to the review, which was published in November in the journal The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology. The reclassification of the mesentery as an organ "is relevant universally as it affects all of us," Coffey said in a statement. By recognizing the anatomy and the structure of the mesentery, scientists can now focus on learning more about how the organ functions, Coffey said. In addition, they can also learn about diseases associated with the mesentery, he added.
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Scientists Identify New Organ In Humans More

Scientists Identify New Organ In Humans

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  • Time for new textbooks that will be $250 each! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @10:33PM (#53602181)

    Time for new textbooks that will be $250 each!

  • Well, not "new" (Score:5, Funny)

    by ihaveamo ( 989662 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @10:37PM (#53602209)
    I think it's more "Scientists identify overlooked organ". Pity..... "New" would have been cool, in an X-MEN sort of way.

    • Yeah, it's kind of like referring to the skin as an organ. It's technically correct (the very best kind of correct!), but you're not really in possession of any significant new knowledge.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "Yeah, it's kind of like referring to the skin as an organ. It's technically correct (the very best kind of correct!), but you're not really in possession of any significant new knowledge."

        Actually, maybe not significant new knowledge, but new understanding...
        I remember the whole "Is the Skin an Organ?" debate in Freshman Physiology many decades back. Back then, the word "Organ" had a different generally accepted meaning, that of a unique part of the body that had at least one defined and continuing functio

        • I'm not sure phlogiston was ever a medical term. It was a physics term for a substance believed to be what flames are made out off - the explanation for fire. If I'm wrong and it had a medical usage I would love to learn.
          Phlogiston also put up quite a fight before finally going the way of the dodo. When we finally figured out how to weigh things that burned and discovered, to our shock, that they got HEAVIER not lighter - for a while most scientists were convinced that this proved phlogiston had negative ma

          • Phlogiston also put up quite a fight before finally going the way of the dodo.

            It was tasty?

            Mmmm... dodo, and phlogiston...

            • Even as we speak, dedicated fans are camping out at McDonald's all around the country waiting for the return of the McDodo, cooked in the finest hydrogenated phlogiston.

        • It does, in fact, participate quite heavily in warding off disease. The mesentery is full of lymph nodes. And if you take it out, you've just removed the blood supply to your gut. Good luck living with your dead bowel.

          You might have a better argument with omentum - it's something you can do without if you have to. Even there, though, it serves a purpose, just as the spleen, appendix, and gallbladder all do.
  • So, did the value of my Grey's Anatomy book go up or down? Fingers crossed.
  • Indeed! We really don't have just one brain. We already know that the spine itself reacts like a brain and near your solar plexus is a junction of nerves that processes more information. The eyes pre-process and sort information before it ever gets near the brain. Unfortunately I haven't researched it for years and retroactive amnesia has set into my brain.
  • Shouldn't the pericardium also be classified as a separate organ rather than part of the heart then? It's certainly more complicated in its function.

    • Re: Um... (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Nonesense, it's technically a dwarf organ. Not worthy of full organ classification.
      Me and 4 other people decided this after everyone else went home.

  • That ain't nuthin' (Score:5, Funny)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @10:44PM (#53602229)

    I lost about 35 pounds and discovered an organ I hadn't seen in so long I thought it was a myth.

    Also, that I have two feet attached to my toes.

    • Also, that I have two feet attached to my toes.

      You saying you have twenty feet?

      I'd have thought you'd have been aware of that no matter how much weight you were carrying.

  • You are now breathing manually. (Score:5, Funny)

    by TroII ( 4484479 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @10:48PM (#53602241)

    You have died of mesentery.

  • I for one welcome (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @11:17PM (#53602357)

    I for one welcome our new intestinal innerlords.

  • This is like saying that scientists discovered 1 billion new living dinosaurs when they reclassified avians as saurian dinosaurs (instead of ancestors of dinosaurs).

    • Saurischians are dinosaurs, dinosaurs are saurischians. Birds are saurischians. Birds are dinosaurs.
      Since the publication of The Origin of Species, and the flurry of evolutionary classification that took off after it, birds have been recognized as some kind of Archosaur or another. Birds have always been known to have been dinosaurs.
      • I'd love to comment on this. But given recent political events I don't want to invoke the Scope trial.

      • Saurischians are dinosaurs, dinosaurs are saurischians. Birds are saurischians. Birds are dinosaurs. Since the publication of The Origin of Species, and the flurry of evolutionary classification that took off after it, birds have been recognized as some kind of Archosaur or another. Birds have always been known to have been dinosaurs.

        You are certainly correct that the identification of birds with dinosaurs was proposed quite early, but it is going a bit too far to say that was generally "known" to be the case. The "Are Bird's Dinosaurs?" debate, was absolutely a topic of argument for a century and a half, but is really two overlapping debates. The first is the actual descent of birds from fossilized (proposed) ancestors, and the second is a fundamental one for evolutionary classification, how should you group species (i.e. what is a tax

        • The "Are Bird's Dinosaurs?" debate, was absolutely a topic of argument for a century and a half,

          Citation? I think that "debate" is an urban myth. Probably from too many of us having read Jurassic Park.

          Sure, there were debates about where exactly they fit (theropods? crocodilians?) but Archaeopteryx isn't a new discovery, and was immediately recognized as some kind of link between dinosaurs and birds. I think it's fair to say that birds have *always* been considered some kind of evolutionary branch of Archosaur, with the extant groups being birds and lizards, at least for as long as we've had Darwini

          • evolutionary branch of Archosaur, with the extant groups being birds and lizards,

            Don't forget the turtles and crocodilians - still not extinct.

            Citation? I think that "debate" is an urban myth.

            Well, Alan Feduccia [wikipedia.org] fought a good fight over it through most of the 1980s and 1990s. He seems to have quieted down over the last couple of decades. There was pseudo-controversy from creationist idiots too, but they're not even worth remembering names for (they all plagiarise each other in any case). See my signature f

  • About the mesentery. Number 9 will surprise you!

    Also, 12 ways contemplating your mesentery will help you lose weight.

  • What's the ordinary joe's word? (Score:5, Funny)

    by tietokone-olmi ( 26595 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @11:49PM (#53602449)

    Can we name it the semicolon?

  • I died of mesentery while playing the Oregon Trail card game the other night...

  • Let me get this straight. If I pick up a Da Vinci textbook, or whatever, and then claim the same thing he did, I will have discovered it? No wonder cancer hasn't been cured yet.

  • Why no comment (that I can find) about the fundamentally misleading title. They did NOT find or even "identify" a new organ. They just decided that the description of a certain part of the human body could be made a bit more clear. Kind of like a promotion up to "organ" status rather like the demotion of Pluto down from planet status.

    I'm skeptical it will be helpful in any medical sense, but maybe it will help clarify some medical conditions. Might need to rename them, too.

    Not sure I should go here... Proba

  • ...when they harvest all the rest of my organs by default.

  • No new Organs (Score:3)

    by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @07:31AM (#53603343)

    There are no new organs in my colon thank you very much.

  • I too have identified a new organ (Score:3)

    by bsdasym ( 829112 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @08:22AM (#53603465)
    It's called the "gut." Previously this organ was believed to be a series of smaller independent organs and tissues, but I've decided otherwise. Where's my Nobel Prize.

  • New organ nothing. (Score:3)

    by Khyber ( 864651 ) <techkitsune@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @09:51AM (#53603795) Homepage Journal

    They merely discovered that it was fully connected instead of segmented.

    Anyone that's read the older First Responder coursebooks from 20+ years ago knows this thing exists in humans. WONDERFUL pictures of shattered bowels and mesentery all throughout the book.

  • Pluto Debate of the Anatomy World? (Score:3)

    by Koreantoast ( 527520 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @11:06AM (#53604259)
    Sounds like the Pluto debate of anatomy - is it an organ or a mere set of membranes?

  • Not scientists, nor Leonadro DaVinci, it was the Egyptians.

    Hold on, I am not joking. Egyptians have known that the mesentery is a single connected membrane. Why? Because they use that fat laden membrane from sheep to create minced meat kabob like grilled meatballs. It is called mandil ("handkerchief" or "hand towel").

    Here is a video [youtube.com] showing it as a full contiguous membrane, and the rest of the recipe if someone is interested.

  • So, to put it in Unix terms... It's a PIPE ORGAN?

  • "scientists have discovered an old organ that was already discovered by a guy living in a time where they weren't exactly sure about wizards yet."

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