Ear

EARS IN HISTORY

According to the ancient Chinese, long earlobes were associated with a person having a long life.

The penalty for an adulteress in 11th century Britain was to forfeit the nose and both ears.

Spectacles were introduced in Italy in 1268 but arms to clip them round the ears were added only in 1727 by English optician Edward Scarlett.

The British once went to war over a sailor’s ear. It happened in 1739 when a Spanish officer supposedly sliced off the ear of a ship's captain named Robert Jenkins.  The pickled ear was presented to an incensed Parliament who decided that Spain needed to be taught a lesson. War was declared on October 23, 1739  The subsequent three-year conflict was dubbed the War of Jenkins’ Ear.

Robert Jenkins hands a dismissive Prime Minister Robert Walpole his severed ear

In November 2012, Lasha Patraya of Georgia set a world record by pulling an eight-ton truck 21.5 metres with his ears.

HUMAN EARS

Your right ear hears speech better and your left ear hears music better.

The human ear is so sensitive that it can hear sound waves that move the eardrum less than the width of a hydrogen atom.

After age 30, human ears increase in size by by 0.22 millimeters, or 0.0087 inches, per year.

The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes, a stirrup-shaped bone in the middle ear.

Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren't.

Asians and Native Americans have dry earwax; Caucasians and Africans have moist earwax.

Every human is born with the ability to wiggle their ears. If you don't discover it early, the muscle atrophies.

Some people can voluntarily control the tensor tympani, a muscle within the ear. Contracting these muscles produces vibration and sound. The noise it makes is usually described as a rumbling sound.

The human earlobe is an erogenous zone because of its nerve endings. Otherwise the organ has no use in a human body.

Ted Richards, a 56-year-old Englishman from Bristol, had both of his ears removed in an effort to look more like his pet parrots.

Half of all British women have their ears pierced - the average age of which they have it done is seven.

In Japan, ear-cleaning parlors are popular places to relax—a normal session includes wax picking and an ear and shoulder massage.

In America, Noddy's friend Big Ears was called Whitebeard to avoid offending large-eared people.

ANIMAL EARS

An Aardvark’s ears may be ten inches long.

Horses have bigger eyes than any other mammal that lives on land.

Mammals are the only animals with flaps around the ears.

The Praying Mantis is the only animal known to have just one ear.

A cat's ear has thirty two muscles.

The only species of bear that does not move its ears to pick up sound is the giant panda.

Mickey Mouse’s ears are always perfect circles whatever angle they are viewed from.

Source Daily Express