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 human small intestine is an essential organ that helps us absorb nutrients and vitamins from food. It is an average of 6 meters long and is covered with millions of villi that are separated by ...

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 ...

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 ...

The human small intestine absorbs nutrients while protecting us from potentially harmful microbes. One of the cell types that plays a key role in this protection is the microfold cell, or M cell.