• canalization hypothesis

    From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Mon Apr 24 21:45:36 2023
    Study finds significant variation in anatomy of human guts
    ...
    ...
    "There was research more than a century ago that found variability in
    the relative lengths of human intestines, but this area has largely
    been ignored since then," says Amanda Hale, co-first author of the
    study and a Ph.D. candidate at North Carolina State University. "When
    we began exploring this issue, we were astonished at the extent of the variability we found."
    ...
    ...
    In another striking example, the researchers found that women tend to
    have longer small intestines than men.

    "Because having a longer small intestine helps you extract nutrients
    from your diet, this finding supports the canalization hypothesis,
    which posits that women are better able to survive during periods of
    stress," says Hale.

    "Given that there is more variation in human gut anatomy than we
    thought, this could inform our understanding of what is driving a
    range of health-related issues and how we treat them," says McKenney. "Basically, now that we know this variability exists, it raises a
    number of research questions that need to be explored."

    https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/986309

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  • From Retrograde@21:1/5 to JAB on Tue Apr 25 20:56:22 2023
    On Mon, 24 Apr 2023 21:45:36 -0500
    JAB <here@is.invalid> wrote:

    Study finds significant variation in anatomy of human guts
    ...
    ...
    "There was research more than a century ago that found variability in
    the relative lengths of human intestines, but this area has largely
    been ignored since then," says Amanda Hale, co-first author of the
    study and a Ph.D. candidate at North Carolina State University. "When
    we began exploring this issue, we were astonished at the extent of the variability we found."

    This is pretty interesting stuff. Interesting how little we still know
    about the basics. I wonder if, once they get past sheer questions of
    geometry and start looking at other differentiating factors, what else
    they'll find.

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