Amazing facts about ear
1.
Ear is not only the
organ of hearing. It helps for our body balancing. You
may have noticed feeling dizzy if you have had an ear infection.
2.
Ears convert sound waves
into nerve impulses that are sent to the brain.
3.
Earwax (cerumen) is not
a waste. It is an important part of ear’s defense system. It protects our ear
canal and inner ear by destroying the pathogens such as bacteria, fungus, dirt
and even insects. It also cleans and lubricates the ear canal. So do not help
the bacteria by removing the wax!
4.
Earwax is made up of oil
and sweat. It is produced by ceruminous glands which are the modified skin
glands.
5.
Ears secrete more earwax
when you are afraid!! But its reasons are not yet clear.
6.
Excessive ear wax can
impair hearing, especially if it is pressed hard against the eardrum.
7.
You get a new ear canal
every year! The ear canal skin is
constantly growing outward at a rate of 1.3 inches every year. If it didn’t fall off, you’d have a two foot
string hanging out of your ear by the time you were 20!
8.
Your ear drum is less
than 0.7 inches (1.75 cm) in diameter. It moves less than a billionth of an
inch when hearing.
9.
The middle part of the
ear (behind the ear drum) amplifies sound pressure.
10.
The middle ear contains
the Eustachian tube which helps equalize pressure and drain mucus.
11.
Malleus (hammer), incus
(anvil) and stapes (stirrup) are the 3 smaller bones present in the middle ear.
Of these, stapes is the smallest bone in the body.
12.
The smallest muscle in
the body is the stapedius, located in the middle ear. It is only 1/20th
of an inch long and controls the smallest bone in the body, the stapes bone.
While the stirrup is twice the size of the muscle, it’s still only about 1/10th
of an inch long.
13.
The inner ear contains
the spiral shaped hearing organ called the cochlea as well as the vestibule and
semicircular canals which help with balance.
14.
The inner ear is about
the size of a pencil eraser, but it contains more than 20,000 hairs. If those
hairs were the size of a pencil, you could create a stack of them 433 feet
tall. About the same height as a 43 story skyscraper.
15.
The inner ear is found
inside the temporal bone, the hardest bone in the human body.
16.
The parts inside of your
ear that help you hear are small enough to be a spy microphone!
17.
Your ear never stops
working, even when you’re asleep. The ear continues to hear sounds, but your
brain simply shuts them out. Maybe
that’s why you sometimes suddenly wake up, positive you heard something, but
with no idea what it was.
18.
Your eyes are always the
same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing. When
babies look up at you with those big eyes, they’re the same size that they’ll
be carrying around in their bodies for the rest of their lives. Their ears and
nose, however, will grow throughout their lives and research has shown that
growth peaks in seven year cycles.
19.
Sound travels at the speed of 370 metre / second and 1250
km per hour.
20.
Sounds waves are passed from air to liquid in the inner
air. The inner air also contains tiny hair cells which react to sound waves,
triggering chemicals that are sent to the brain as nerve impulses.
21.
The human ear can distinguish between hundreds of thousands
of different sounds.
22.
Nobody knows how the brain tells the difference between
high pitched and low pitched sounds, or between loud and soft sounds.
23.
After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. If
you’re hearing to a concert or a musical after a big meal you may be doing
yourself a disservice.
24.
Sitting in front of the speakers at a rock concert can
begin to damage hearing in only 7 ½ minutes. This damage is not reversible!
25.
The smallest sound you can hear is 0 decibels. A jet engine
clocks in at 120 decibels and a gunshot at 140. Eight hours of exposure to 90
decibels or more can cause damage to your hearing. When the sounds are above
130 decibels, it causes pain to the ears. Anything over 140 decibels causes
immediate damage.
26.
The sound of the roaring ocean you hear when putting a
seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but the sound of your blood surging
through the veins in your ear.
27.
A cat has 32 muscles in
each ear and each ear can turn independently.
28.
Bats can hear up to
110,000 Hz and use this ability like sonar to figure out how far away stuff is.
29.
Cats and dogs can hear
much higher frequencies such as ultrasound.
30.
Cicadas have their
‘ears’ in their stomachs. How’s that for food for thought? (or hearing)
31.
Crickets have their
‘ears’ in their knees.
32.
Fish do not have ears,
but they can hear pressure changes through ridges on their body.
33.
Flies are deaf.
34.
Male mosquitoes hear
with thousands of tiny hairs growing on their antennae.
35.
Snakes do not have ears,
but their tongues are sensitive to sound vibrations. Snakes hear through the
jaw bone and through a traditional inner ear. In essence, snakes have two
distinct hearing mechanisms, which help them hear and catch prey.
36.
The winner for ability
to hear the highest frequencies is the porpoise, which can hear up to 150,000
Hz.
37.
While people can hear in
the range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, cats hear from 45 Hz to 64,000 Hz. Mice can
hear even higher, up to 91,000 Hz, but their lower limit is 1000 Hz.
38.
Children have more
sensitive ears than adults.
39.
Ear infections are more
common in children because of their developing immune systems and differences
between their Eustachian tubes and those of adults.
40.
Second-hand smoke in the
home increases the risk of middle ear infections and allergies in children.
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