Hearing Facts Tag

ear anatomy

10 Facts You May Not Know About Your Ears

10 Facts About Your Ears The human ear is amazing! The more I learn about it, the more I’m blown away at how such a small organ can do so much and be so intricate. Here are 10 cool facts that you may not know about your ears and hearing. The smallest bones in the body are in the ear! They are the ossicles in the middle ear; the incus, the malleus, and the stapes (also called the anvil, hammer, and stirrup because that’s kind of what they look like). The inner ear is the circumference of a pencil eraser! Your sense of hearing depends on tiny hairs deep inside your ear. If you lose these hairs, you lose your hearing. The slightest movement of these hairs is how we hear a variety of sounds and frequencies.  You do not need to clean wax out of your ears unless you have an abnormal condition. Ears are self-cleaning, they push the wax out on their own. On occasion, they may need a bit of help from a professional.  Most individuals experiencing hearing loss are under the age of 65… that’s right UNDER 65, hearing is not just about ‘aging’  The number one cause of hearing loss is exposure to excessively loud sounds (85 decibels or higher). Those orange foam earplugs are a great way to protect your hearing in noisy environments. Your hearing can be damaged permanently even after a single exposure to extremely loud noise (shotgun blast, explosion, etc.). Your ears...

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Animals with Amazing Hearing

Animals with Amazing Hearing The human ear can hear a lot, anywhere between 20Hz and 20,000kHz. We have some of the best sense of vision in the animal kingdom, but when it comes to hearing, there are a few animals that have us beat. Animals have a larger capacity for higher frequencies than humans. Here are just a few animals that have amazing hearing. Moths Believe it or not, moths have the best hearing in the animal kingdom! Moths can hear 150 times more than we can. They use their ultra-sensitive high-frequency hearing to evade predators, like bats. So they would need better hearing than those predators. Bats The old saying ‘deaf as a bat’ is a bit of an oxymoron. Bats actually have very sensitive hearing. Because they are almost blind, they rely very heavily on their hearing. Using echolocation, they squeak at very high frequencies. The sound bounces off any nearby objects back to the bat, allowing them to ‘see’ where it is. Dogs If you’ve ever failed to hear a dog whistle, you’re not alone. Dogs hear frequencies far beyond the human range and can respond to them quite well. Not only is their hearing very sensitive, but also very good a differentiating between sounds… even the difference between their owners' footsteps and a stranger's. Cats However surprising this may be, cats have hearing similar to dogs, with a range reaching up to 64,000kHz. They are able to swivel their ears even further than dogs, making them more...

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