Have you ever wondered how life would be without the ears? You wouldn’t be able to enjoy the music or know when someone is continuously beeping their horn behind your vehicle.
Would there have been a concept of horns if there was no hearing? How would the world communicate with each other? It will be impossible without the sense of hearing, right? This is exactly the reason why hearing is one of the 5 basic senses without which life can become difficult to live.
So, let us learn more about our ears, their sense, and the need to maintain their health. Moreover, let us help you evaluate and optimize the health of your ears regularly using the Bebird Note 5 ear camera.
8 Fun Facts About Our Ears
Here are the 8 facts you need to know about your ears.
Maintaining Balance and Guiding Movements
Our ears play an integral part in maintaining the balance of the body. That is why we often feel dizziness whenever we have an ear infection or any other disease involving the ears.
In the inner ear, three semi-circular canals lie just above the cochlea. These canals have fluid and thousands of small hairs in them.
As they are located at different angles, our brain can easily detect the head movement in any direction and signal the canals to maintain balance accordingly. This system is known as the vestibular system.
Self-Cleaning
All of us know that our ears produce a sticky substance to protect themselves from foreign bodies and dirt. Do we have to clean that wax? No, because the ears are self-cleaning.
The normal skin migration pattern and jaw movement make the wax migrate from deeper areas toward the ear canal opening. Then the wax is either pushed out of the ear or washed away. This is how our ears can maintain their normal health and stay moisturized.
Sometimes, when the normal self-cleaning mechanism of ears is disrupted or stickier wax is produced due to aging, the wax starts accumulating in the ears. This leads to earwax impaction.
Ears are Always Working with No Breaks
Our ears never rest even if we are sleeping. Being small and looking like an insignificant structure, ears do much more than they appear. Ears help you hear and hearing normally is mandatory for us to communicate, understand each other, and establish meaningful connections.
Furthermore, it allows us to participate in team activities, laugh together, and make our life experience joyful. All of this would not be possible without ears.
This hearing process continues even when we are asleep. But, as the body needs complete rest and hearing continuously can disrupt the sleep cycle, our brain starts ignoring the sounds on its own. That is why loud noises wake you up at night. If you hear crack sound in your ear, there might be some problems,
The Interesting Ear Structure
Have you ever read about the ear structure anywhere? The ears are very small as compared to the rest of our body but there is still so much going on inside them.
If we talk about their bony structure, the ears have 3 of the smallest bones in them. When combined, these bones are equal to the size of an eraser. These little bones are named ossicles and they help in the transmission of sound from the environment to the inner parts of the ear.
In addition to the bones, ears consist of countless hairs that lie in fluid in the inner ear. These hairs play an important role in maintaining the normal hearing process and balance.
Ears are as Unique as Your Fingerprints
Ears are thought to resemble fingerprints when it comes to the physical features determining the identity of a person. Just like how every person has a unique fingerprint that can be used as an individual identity, every person’s ear is also unique and different from the other.
Therefore, there is no way that 2 individuals have the same structure of the ears. As a result, the shape and detailed structure of the ear can also help in recognizing identical twins.
To study the measurements of the ear, Cameriere’s ear identification method is used. A study states that there is a probability of only < 0.0007 of finding two ears with the same prints and ratios as assessed by Cameriere’s ear identification technique [1].
Newborn’s Ears are Different from an Adult’s
As we mentioned earlier the structure, size, and ratio of ears for two individuals are different from each other, the same is the case when it comes to differentiating the ears of an adult from a newborn. Their ears differ from each other in many ways.
The ossicles of a newborn are similar in size to that of an adult but the tympanic membrane in babies lies almost horizontally while in adults, it is 45 degrees away from the horizontal. Moreover, the adults only have one-third of the soft tissue while the ear canal of babies is entirely covered with soft tissues.
Earlobes Grow Constantly
Our earlobes grow continuously throughout the life. They are either attached or detached depending upon your genetics. But, this does not affect their growth. They keep on growing till death!
With time, some other changes also occur in the ear lobes. For example, they become droopy and deflated. Similarly, our ears also seem to grow throughout life but in actuality, the ears get elongated due to gravity and the physiological changes in the skin with age.
Hearing Loss also Cause Developmental Delay and Cognitive Concerns
While it appears like ears only help in hearing sounds and communicating, they are equally important for the proper functioning of the brain. A report published in PubMed by the National Library of Medicine has stated that hearing loss can be a risk factor for memory loss or dementia [2].
Thus, people with hearing loss or any degree of hearing impairment have a three times higher risk of developing dementia as compared to individuals with normal hearing. This results from the fact that there is reduced mental stimulation in case of hearing loss.
Also, the patient is isolated from others due to a failure of communication. Consequently, he develops anxiety and depression. All these factors together contribute to accelerating the cognitive decline in an individual.
Conclusion
Our little ears have a complex structure inside them. This structure has bones, membranous parts, fluid, and hair. So, it helps in hearing, communicating, balancing the body, and developing social interactions.
Moreover, ears send signals to other body parts to perform their functions and also help our brains work efficiently. Not to mention how ears serve as an identification mark. In conclusion, A small structure of our body that apparently seems insignificant is playing a vital role in our lives to stay healthy and work efficiently.
References
1. Ear-shape as accurate as fingerprints. 10/07/2023. La Trobe University. https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2023/release/ear-shape-as-accurate-as-fingerprints
2. The Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care: a call for action. Ir J Psychol Med. 2019 Jun;36(2):85-88. doi: 10.1017/ipm.2018.4. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31187723/
