The other day, Lauren mentioned to me that her anatomy professor was teaching the class that the appendix is a functionless organ.  This view, that it is a vestigal organ, a remnant of evolution, is certainly a common one.  There is, however, no real reason to believe it.  What follows is a collection of articles I have found, either directly via google search, or indirectly via the references in other articles (some of which are here).

1. Loren G. Martin.  Answering “What is the function of the human appendix? Did it once have a purpose that has since been lost?” in the “Ask the Experts” section of Scientific American.  Answer posted 1999-10-21.  http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CAE56-7201-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7
2. Ms. Julie Pomerantz.  Answering “Does the appendix serve a purpose in any animal?” in the “Ask the Experts” section of Scientific American.  Answer posted 2002-12-02.
3. Fisher, RE. 2000. “The primate appendix: a reassessment.” The Anatomical Record (New Anatomist) 261:228-236.
4. Dasso JF. Obiakor H. Bach H. Anderson AO. Mage RG. 2000. “A morphological and immunohistological study of the human and rabbit appendix for comparison with the avian bursa.” Developmental & Comparative Immunology. 24(8):797-814.
5. NIAID.  “The Immune System”  NIAID NetNews.  2003-09-25.  http://www.niaid.nih.gov/final/immun/immun.htm
6. Professor Gordon C. Mills, Professor Malcolm Lancaster, Professor Walter L. Bradley.  “Origin of Life & Evolution in Biology Textbooks - A Critique.”  Reposted at Access Research Network.  2001-10-03.  http://www.arn.org/docs/mills/gm_originoflifeandevolution.htm
7. Mr. Christopher Wanjek.  “The Appendix: Slimy But Not Worthless.”  Health SciTech 2006-05-30.  http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060530_bad_appendix.html

Apparently my use of “<ol><font size=”-2″><li>…” results in my page being invalid xhtml transitional. I am not sure why I care; the browsers render what I want. I do care however, so I am left in a bind. I do not know much about CSS, certainly not enough to have done more than trivially edit the WordPress theme I am using. From what I see in my search results, I am supposed to be using CSS to handle this sort of font sizing thing, and while I see something to that effect in the style.css for the theme, it appears to be wrapped up in how comments are treated. I really do not know what I am doing, and advice and/or assistance would be welcome, including a pointer to a Fine Manual for me to Read (reference to RTFM).

On the off chance that anyone is willing to look at it, the style.css is up at ~luke/style.txt.

UPDATE 2006-08-08 22:34 EDT: Vincas rocks. He pointed me at http://alistapart.com/articles/taminglists/ and then continued to help me with examples and letting me think out loud until I figured out enough to add my own div id stuff. So now I can make my references display small without violating xhmtl transitional. ☺

This has been very scary to watch. Last year about this time, I wrote about doctors winning the right to overrule parents of a 22-month old baby, and refuse resuscitation.^[1] I suppose it is only logical, however scary, that this rulling would be extended to other classes of human beings.^[2] This time, a man with cerebellar ataxia, some sort of brain condition that apparently does not affect mental ability, but does affect the ability to express those thoughts, has lost the right to insist that he not die of starvation and/or dehydration.

The final blow appears to be, as the BBC article states, a classic catch 22.  The European Court of Human Rights, to which he appealed after losing his appeals in the British courts, decided that it is “premature” to consider the appeal, because there is no “imminent” risk.  Naturally, however, such a risk could only become “imminent” after Mr. Burke, the patient, has lost the ability to express his own wishes, and with it the ability to appeal to the court.