American researchers have found that the appendix has a function, has been in existence for 80 million years and are present in other species other than humans.

The sac hanging between the small and large intestine serves as a "safehouse" of good bacteria that spreads on the intestine after others have been wiped out during a diarrhea attack, according to the researchers from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina led by immunologist William Parker.

Scientists at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) have found two new species of bacteria which have been buried beneath two miles of ice in Greenland for at least 120,000 years.

Prof. Jennifer Loveland-Curtze led the discovery of the harmless bacteria named Herminiimonas glaciei and Chryseobacterium greenlandensis, the study of which are published in Monday's issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use hand sanitizers made by a Utah chemical company.

Clarcon Biological Chemistry Laboratory Inc. of Roy, Utah has voluntarily recalled some of its skin sanitizers and skin protectants marketed under different brand names because of high levels of disease-causing bacteria found in the product during a recent inspection by the FDA.

A bacteria that lives in hairspray and a coffee bean without caffeine are among the top 10 new species revealed Friday by researchers at Arizona State University.

The plants, bugs and other creatures are among the 18,516 species discovered in 2007 and reported in the "Status of Observed Species."

Two astronauts of the International Space Station walked in space Tuesday to set up a biology experiment outside the orbiting laboratory and fix a docking port.

American Michael Fincke and Russian Yuri Lonchakov reinstalled the European Space Agency's Expose R biology experiment container. Plant seeds and spores of bacteria and fungi inside the container will be exposed to weightlessness, sun rays and temperature extremes for 18 months as part of a scientific study to determine if life forms originated on Earth or in outer space.