Three articles for August and surprisingly for this blog, not a single one of them has anything to do with human nature. Two are related to biology but are more interesting in the way that they serve as examples of how science can correct a past mistake, even a long held one, as well as how popular reporting can easily misinterpret a scientific finding. The remaining one is a piece on dark energy, found via The Sycologist.
The first article deals with what is commonly taught as the most useless of human organs: the lowly appendix. As this article which appeared on Yahoo! by way of Livescience.com explains, all of us have probably been taught at some point in our lives that the appendix not only serves no purpose, being a relic of our evolutionary past, but is in fact a potentially lethal liability if it becomes inflamed.
Continue reading Recent Interesting Science Articles (August ’09)