Science Tuesday - Fossils, Planets, and the Appendix

Dinosaur Fossils Discovered in Utah
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times, June 17, 2008

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A newly discovered batch of well-preserved dinosaur bones, petrified trees and even freshwater clams in southeastern Utah could provide new clues about life in the region some 150 million years ago.
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A Bounty of Midsize Planets Is Reported
By DENNIS OVERBYE, The New York Times, June 17, 2008

There is a lot of new territory out there in the cosmos, but nothing you would want to pitch camp on — yet.

About a third of all the Sun-like stars in our galaxy harbor modestly sized planets, according to a study announced Monday by a team of European astronomers.

At a meeting in Nantes, France, Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory and his group presented a list of 45 new planets, ranging in mass from slightly bigger than Earth to about twice as massive as Neptune, from a continuing survey of some 200 stars.
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Helpful Bacteria May Hide in Appendix
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, June 17, 2008

Everyone is born with one, but no one knows what it’s for. The human appendix is a small dead-end tube connected to the cecum, or ascending colon, one section of the large intestine. Everyone lives happily with it until it becomes painfully inflamed, when the only treatment is to remove it surgically.

Then everyone lives happily without it. So why is it there in the first place?

Some experts have guessed that it is a vestige of the evolutionary development of some other organ, but there is little evidence for an appendix in our evolutionary ancestors. Few mammals have any appendix at all, and the appendices of those that do bears little resemblance to the human one.

Last December, researchers published a novel explanation in The Journal of Theoretical Biology. The appendix, they suggest, is a “safe house” for commensal bacteria, the symbiotic germs that aid digestion and help protect against disease-causing germs.
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