This story is part of a series exploring human anatomy and physiology complexities. Each story in this collection showcases discoveries reshaping our understanding of the body's inner workings, ...

The gut microbiome is an important ecosystem of microbes that lives in each one of us, and its strength affects our overall health. However, the small intestine is an underappreciated part of the gut ...

Microbiome research to date has been much like the parable of the blind men and the elephant. How much can be said about an elephant by examining just its tail? Researchers have studied what is most ...

The US humorist Christopher Morley once described the human body as “an ingenious assembly of portable plumbing”. He wasn’t wrong: from our cardiovascular and lymphatic systems to our guts and urinary ...

Much of the food you eat is absorbed by your digestive system, which includes your stomach and your intestines. But some of what you eat makes it all the way through those twists and turns and comes ...