Ancestors

Written by John Carlos Baez on 2025-01-19 at 19:04

Have scientists discovered a new organ that accounts for about 20% of your body weight?

It's called the 'interstitium'. It's a network of channels between the other organs. The fluid in these channels is called 'interstitial fluid', and it transports nutrients and molecules that carry communications between cells, especially involving the immune system. The interstitium drains into the lymph system, but it's not the same thing.

Here's an interesting show about why it remained unnoticed for so long. Basically the problem was that scientists were studying dried-up tissue samples instead of living tissue!

Thanks to @rustoleumlove for alerting me to the interstitium here on Mastodon before I heard about it in on the radio.

https://radiolab.org/podcast/interstitium

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Toot

Written by Uffe V. Poulsen on 2025-01-19 at 20:59

@johncarlosbaez @rustoleumlove Reminds of this recent discovery of an extra layer of lining around the brain. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adc8810

(There was some serious dispute about credit and authorship, as I recall.)

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Descendants

Written by John Carlos Baez on 2025-01-19 at 21:20

@uffe1974 @rustoleumlove - hmm, I'll have to read about that! You're reminding me of how people thought 'glial cells' were just boring gray support tissue in the brain, and then they discovered - surprise, surprise! - that they do interesting things.

The idea that any part of a system that's been evolving for many million years doesn't have fine-tuned multiple functions seems shortsighted!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glia

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