Scientists Accidentally Found An Entirely New Organ That’s Been Hiding In Plain Sight All Along
We know that the human body is a mesmerically complicated system of tissues, bones and organs, a fantastic structure that still isn’t fully understood. Well for sure, there are things to learn about our anatomy, but we at least know about all of our organs, right? Well... not quite. It turns out that the body still harbors significant secrets, as some researchers from the Netherlands were astonished to discover only very recently.
These scientists weren’t purposely looking to discover any new organs or anything – they had their own priorities. In actual fact they were trying to learn more about prostate cancer, a worthy pursuit considering the condition’s prevalence. But it was in undertaking this vital research that they noticed something which had somehow eluded medical specialists throughout history.
The researchers were focused on the upper parts of the body, taking scans of a person’s head and their neck. It was in the midst of these examinations that the group noticed something odd. The tests had revealed something unprecedented, a structure that nobody on the team had ever seen before.
There was a chance that this was a discrepancy. Maybe the scan was showing things that weren’t really there, or perhaps this particular individual had an unusual physical makeup? So, the researchers looked for the structure in other people, too. But after examining scans of 100 different individuals – not to mention dissecting two further corpses, one belonging to a man and one to a woman, just to be sure – they found that this thing was apparently in every one of us.
The discovery of this newly identified organ isn’t just of interest for its own sake. No, this unexpected find could actually have real-life implications for the way we treat stricken patients today. People’s lives and outcomes could be genuinely enhanced here, so this accidental discovery could well prove to be ground-breaking.