Fun facts about hearing

Posted Wednesday March 2, 2022

Did you know:

• The inner ear is no larger than a pencil eraser in circumference.
• Not all living creatures hear with ears. Snakes use jawbones, fish respond to pressure changes, and male mosquitoes use antennae.
• The eardrum moves less than a billionth of an inch in response to sound.
• In World War I parrots were kept on the Eiffel Tower because of their remarkable sense of hearing. When the parrots heard enemy aircraft they warned everyone of the approaching danger long before any human ear would hear it.
• Sometimes if you have damage to your ears, your perception of taste may be off because the nerves (called the chorda tympani) run through the ear and connect the taste buds on the front of your tongue to your brain. Sometimes people who have had ear surgery experience a change in their sense of taste. It does not mean that hearing loss directly correlates to an inability to taste.
• Ear infections are more common in children because of their developing immune systems and differences between their Eustachian tubes (at more of a horizontal angle) than those of adults.
• Earwax has been useful to anthropologists for studying early human migratory patterns.

Source: Hearing Health Matters