Speaker 1: A fifty year old woman presented to her GP following
Speaker 1: an episode of ear candling. After fifteen minutes, the person
Speaker 1: performing the candling burned herself while attempting to remove the
Speaker 1: candle and spilled candle wax into the patient's right ear canal.
Speaker 1: On examination, a piece of candle wax was found in
Speaker 1: the patient's ear and she was referred to the local ear, nose,
Speaker 1: and throat department under general anesthetic. A large mass of
Speaker 1: solidified yellow candle wax was removed from the deep meatus
Speaker 1: of the ear. The patient had a small perforation in
Speaker 1: her right to panic membrane. Results of a pure tone
Speaker 1: audiogram showed a mild conductive hearing loss on the right side.
Speaker 1: At a follow up appointment one month later, the perforation
Speaker 1: was still there and the patient's hearing had not improved.
Speaker 1: An account of why not to ear candle.
Speaker 2: I mean, just one example, just one that sounds horrific. Yep.
Speaker 1: I agree. Every single account of ear candling that I
Speaker 1: read was exactly like this. This particular account comes from
Speaker 1: an article from two thousand and seven by Rafferty at
Speaker 1: All published in the Canadian Family Physician that was titled
Speaker 1: ear candling. Should general prec tishners recommend it? The answer
Speaker 1: was no.
Speaker 2: No, firmly. Wow that's awful. Yeah, that's awful.
Speaker 1: It's not great.
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Aaron Welsh.
Speaker 1: And I'm Erin.
Speaker 2: I'm an Updike and this is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about ear wax, ear wax, continuing our
Speaker 1: bodily fluids.
Speaker 2: There's so much more that I've been like mentally collecting them.
Speaker 2: There's like saliva would be a great one, belly button lint.
Speaker 2: What's in there tojam on skin cells?
Speaker 1: It's probably the same thing as to jam.
Speaker 2: Aaron, Well, we'll do an episode on it, babe.
Speaker 1: Okay, I can't wait.
Speaker 2: We'll have to see if there's enough material there. But
Speaker 2: don't get it like, I'm sorry, absolutely done, thank you.
Speaker 2: I am thrilled for this episode.
Speaker 1: I can't wait because I have nothing to contribute, but
Speaker 1: I really want to. You have to say, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I want to know what makes up earwax. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have several pages of notes, but like it's I'm
Speaker 1: here for you.
Speaker 2: I'm here for you. I love you. I love you.
Speaker 2: I also love quarantine time me too.
Speaker 1: That's what time it is.
Speaker 2: How is that done? Was that nicely done? Really? Really good? Good?
Speaker 1: Good? What are we drinking this week?
Speaker 2: Arin, We're drinking the gold Mine gold mine. Yeah, not
Speaker 2: out ear wax is gold some.
Speaker 1: Of it is so many different shades, so many different grays, blacks, yellowish, brown.
Speaker 2: Do you already say brown? I did, Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Lots of shades though.
Speaker 2: Lots of shades within mustard. But we are we're drinking.
Speaker 2: I mean, we named it gold mine because the amount
Speaker 2: of information that you can tell from earwax is more
Speaker 2: than I ever expected.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: So I plus earwax is a resource, like not just informationally, well,
Speaker 2: there's a lot to cover.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, you're gonna tell me everything. What's in
Speaker 1: the gold mine?
Speaker 2: It's I mean, we wanted to make it look goldish.
Speaker 2: You know. It's got pineapple juice, Jlipino simple syrup and
Speaker 2: lime club soda. It's refreshing, delicious. This episode will come
Speaker 2: out summertime, I think, so it's great in the summer,
Speaker 2: in the summer, in the Northern Hemisphere summer.
Speaker 1: You can find the full recipe on our website, this
Speaker 1: podcastikila dot com, and all of our social media channels
Speaker 1: which you should be following us if you're not already,
Speaker 1: because we're there posting things like this Quarantini recipe. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what else, rate review and subscribe. Thank
Speaker 1: you to everyone who has left us a review. It
Speaker 1: really does help other people find this podcast, and we'd
Speaker 1: like for like I don't know, everyone to listen to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you are watching on YouTube, hi, hi, and we
Speaker 1: we are there on a web subscribe on a website
Speaker 1: we have called this podcast will Kill You dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find transcripts, you can find sources from every episode, Merchpatreon,
Speaker 1: bookshop dot org, bookmobile, bloodmobile. Who does the music?
Speaker 2: There's a lot, there's a lot, and I just I
Speaker 2: know we always thank everyone at the end of these episodes,
Speaker 2: but I was thinking, how there are there's so much
Speaker 2: out there, Like there are so many podcasts out there,
Speaker 2: there's so much media to listen to, to watch, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And the fact that people choose to engage with ours
Speaker 2: is really it's really surreal and wonderful and so thank
Speaker 2: you for choosing to spend your time with us. It
Speaker 2: means the world truly really does.
Speaker 1: It really does. Like we love getting to make this
Speaker 1: podcast as our jobs, yeah, and sharing everything that we
Speaker 1: learn with you. And I still can't believe that anyone
Speaker 1: I know listen. It's truly say. Every time someone's like,
Speaker 1: oh I listen, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, really, you've heard of this podcast? What why do
Speaker 2: you listen? Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it, we do.
Speaker 2: But enough enough of all that. It's time for earwax.
Speaker 1: Ear wax. Let's get into it right after this break. Earwax.
Speaker 1: That's how I started good. I like it all caps,
Speaker 1: so we all know what it is. It's the junk
Speaker 1: in our ears. The official medical term for ear wax
Speaker 1: is serumin.
Speaker 2: Junk is you know I'm going to take issue with that.
Speaker 1: Oh I can't wait for you to take issue with that.
Speaker 1: So serumin is this waxy substance that our ear makes.
Speaker 1: Our ear makes this in order to stay lubricated, to
Speaker 1: clean and protect our ear canal. And really it functions
Speaker 1: a lot like the mucus in our nose, except it's
Speaker 1: kind of also completely different.
Speaker 2: So it was like, its just ear boogers.
Speaker 1: It's ear boogers, yeah, more or less, but different. So
Speaker 1: it is a protective barrier the same way that our nose,
Speaker 1: mucus is it is a little bit acidic, and so
Speaker 1: in being a little bit acidic, it keeps our ear
Speaker 1: canal acidic, which helps to inhibit the growth of bacteria
Speaker 1: and fungi which would really love to be able to
Speaker 1: grow in our ear canal. There was a nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: four pape which I didn't read this paper, but I
Speaker 1: read a paper that quoted this paper that called the
Speaker 1: ear canal quote the green house of the human body
Speaker 1: end quote, because of how much fung i would love
Speaker 1: to grow in our ear canal. And I was like,
Speaker 1: wouldn't we have a lot of moist dark.
Speaker 2: Eye was, yeah, there's gotta be more. I can think
Speaker 2: of many greenhouses we too populate throughout our bodies.
Speaker 1: But anyways, the potentially I mean every mucus membrane, really
Speaker 1: every mucus membrane. Anyways, just like in our nose, in
Speaker 1: our ears, we have these glands just underneath the skin
Speaker 1: that are what produced the oily substance that ends up
Speaker 1: getting mixed with shed skin cells and debris that all
Speaker 1: together become our ear wax. There's two types of glands.
Speaker 1: There are sabaceous glands and we have subacious glands all
Speaker 1: over our body, and sabacious glands produce a substance called seam,
Speaker 1: which is like this sort of oily type of substance.
Speaker 1: And then we also have in our ears these modified
Speaker 1: apicrin glands, and our apocrine glands are basically like our
Speaker 1: sweat glands are a type of apricin gland as well,
Speaker 1: and these glands produce a variety of substances, including lipids
Speaker 1: so like fats, wax esters, alcohols, something called squaleen, which
Speaker 1: is a kind of fatty substance, and cholesterol, and all
Speaker 1: of these get together, the secretions from our apicrine glands
Speaker 1: and the secretions from our sebum glands and mix with
Speaker 1: our dead skin cells, which I find very fascinating because
Speaker 1: the cells in our ear, like our skin cells, shed
Speaker 1: all the time, right like rub your hand against your
Speaker 1: skin and the top layer is sluffing off.
Speaker 2: Okay, got it, It sluffed the top layer.
Speaker 1: That's happening in our ears as well, and it moves
Speaker 1: from the inside of our ear towards the outside of
Speaker 1: our ear like the cells do this shedding thing in
Speaker 1: a particular way. There's a paper from nineteen sixty four
Speaker 1: that like tracked the way that our ear canal sheds
Speaker 1: its own skin. How is it doing hairs? No, So
Speaker 1: here's what's so fascinating. It's not little hairs or little cilia.
Speaker 1: A big part of what moves the skin and all
Speaker 1: of the debris within it is our jaw movements. So
Speaker 1: when we are talking and chewing, it helps to move
Speaker 1: the ear wax and these skin cells along the ear
Speaker 1: canal itself. And this is all our Technically, our outer ear,
Speaker 1: which is our ear, has three parts in our middle
Speaker 1: and outer and this is all the outer parts, so
Speaker 1: from the tympanic membrane out towards the outside world. Cool.
Speaker 2: I have, very cool. I have a few questions.
Speaker 1: Give it to me.
Speaker 2: Where are these glands located? They located throughout our ear canal,
Speaker 2: just in our inner ear. Okay, so yeah, they're throughout
Speaker 2: our ear canal. This is all outer ear canal. This
Speaker 2: is all outer ear, all outer ear. Okay, yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's inner because I like the oracle
Speaker 1: or the pinnow, which is like the visible.
Speaker 2: Part of your ear, the little hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's yeah, it's a canal that's like usually
Speaker 1: like an inch or so long. It can be a
Speaker 1: little bit windy, so it sometimes feels longer when you're
Speaker 1: looking in it.
Speaker 2: But okay, how much do we produced? And here's the
Speaker 2: other question. Can you answer?
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer to that question, and it
Speaker 1: bothers me so much that I didn't see that anywhere.
Speaker 1: Do you have an answer?
Speaker 2: I don't have an answer. I mean, I I had
Speaker 2: a hard time finding I was trying to find the
Speaker 2: origin of these glands, the like seruminous glands, and like
Speaker 2: when did they evolve and blah blah blah, and I
Speaker 2: I mean maybe my search terms weren't great, but I
Speaker 2: couldn't find anything. Okay, So then the other question is
Speaker 2: does the amount that we produce what affects it? And
Speaker 2: I was just thinking of like, if if you're grinding
Speaker 2: your teeth at night and that's an eight solid hours
Speaker 2: of just jaw movement movement, are you producing more ear
Speaker 2: wax or are you moving more ear wax? Is there
Speaker 2: an impact on earwax?
Speaker 1: That's an excellent question. I have literally no idea. I
Speaker 1: have no idea, but that's such an interesting question. So
Speaker 1: we do are our ear the glands in our ears?
Speaker 1: The cruminous glands. So the semum glands and the apocrine glands,
Speaker 1: they reduce in number as we get older, and so
Speaker 1: that's one thing that's going to affect how much earwax
Speaker 1: we make. So the older that you get, the less
Speaker 1: the dryer your ear wax tends to be because you
Speaker 1: have less of these glands. Why don't ask me, I
Speaker 1: don't know except that, like, I mean, your skin gets
Speaker 1: drier in general as you get older, right, so you're
Speaker 1: just losing sebum producing glands everywhere. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: actually know they fall off?
Speaker 2: Yeah, why do they fall fall off?
Speaker 1: Or they just kind of like dry, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I mean, I get you physically fall off. Okay,
Speaker 2: what about ear?
Speaker 1: Ear hair? Ear hair also increases in number as we
Speaker 1: get older, and so the like, older people might have
Speaker 1: quite a lot of hair in their ears, especially males,
Speaker 1: and that can actually block the ear wax from coming
Speaker 1: all the way out, so it can contribute to serum
Speaker 1: and impaction, which I'll talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: in a minute.
Speaker 2: Why do we get more ear hair when we get older.
Speaker 1: I don't have it. I don't have an answer. We
Speaker 1: get hair everywhere when we get older.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, we lose hair body hairs as an episode.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm down. So there's two main types of earwax.
Speaker 1: It's usually split. There's wet earwax and there's dry earwax.
Speaker 1: And I think you're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about this distinction, Arin, but it's genetically determined, which
Speaker 1: I think is so interesting, except that obviously it does also,
Speaker 1: like I said, get drier as we age. But the drier,
Speaker 1: flakier earwax, which some people have, is usually lighter in color,
Speaker 1: and it tends to be more common in people of
Speaker 1: Asian and Native American descent. And then the sticky, dark earwax,
Speaker 1: which is what I have say, very sticky wax, it's
Speaker 1: more common in people of African and European descent. And
Speaker 1: apparently the dry, flaky earwax is like a recessive trait. Correct,
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell me more about that I got about
Speaker 1: ear wax. There's not I tried to find if there
Speaker 1: was like a big literature about like who's more likely
Speaker 1: to get earwax impaction or something like that, And there
Speaker 1: isn't a strong association between types of ear wax, like
Speaker 1: you can get too much of it, whether you have
Speaker 1: the dry, flaky stuff or the wet, sticky stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's interesting, Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so under typical or ideal conditions, our outer
Speaker 1: ear is kind of like a self clean oven. Okay.
Speaker 1: So it makes this wax and then it pushes it
Speaker 1: out in order to keep our ear canals free of
Speaker 1: debris and bacteria and getting rid of all of these
Speaker 1: skin cells once they're dead and done.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: The biggest complication that we see is when this mechanism,
Speaker 1: for one reason or another doesn't go as planned, and
Speaker 1: so our ear wax builds up and gets stuck inside
Speaker 1: of our ear canals. And this is called serumin impaction.
Speaker 2: Why problem might that happen? Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: There's so many different reasons. It's probably the biggest ear
Speaker 1: wax complaints, certainly like that you see in primary care
Speaker 1: or things like that. There's lots of other things that
Speaker 1: you can get stuck in your ear canal, bugs and
Speaker 1: legos and other small toys very common.
Speaker 2: I feel like you have an ear invasion phobia. Dem
Speaker 2: I remembering that, correct.
Speaker 1: I love that you remember that and said it on
Speaker 1: a podcast for the world. I do. It's because of
Speaker 1: the wrath of con okay, okay. In the Wrath of
Speaker 1: con they put a little like alien guy in this
Speaker 1: is like the original star track of movie. They put
Speaker 1: a little alien like mind control guy. And then in
Speaker 1: Anamorphs that's also how they control or something. Is that
Speaker 1: what they're called? Wow, something like that. Did you know
Speaker 1: they're making a series, Eric, I do know that.
Speaker 2: I am very excited about it, so excited about and
Speaker 2: I'm also nervous because like those books.
Speaker 1: Were very dark, I know.
Speaker 2: So we'll see how it goes, so we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: But anyways, so yes, I do have a phobia of
Speaker 1: like mind control creatures being put specifically.
Speaker 2: I just figured it was like any bug.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I don't like the idea of anybody.
Speaker 1: I've taken some cockroaches out of ears, and it's not
Speaker 1: like a pleasant experience for the person who has the
Speaker 1: cockroach in their ear.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I regret going down. It's well, it's.
Speaker 1: Not it's not great, okay, But anyways, ear wax much
Speaker 1: more common to get stuck in your ears than other things,
Speaker 1: and the biggest issue that can happen from this is
Speaker 1: that if the ear wax completely obscures your tympanic membrane,
Speaker 1: which is the thing that separates your outer ear from
Speaker 1: your middle ear, and this is like the membrane that
Speaker 1: allows us to hear. Then, not only can this be
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable, it can create the sensation of fullness, it
Speaker 1: can be very itchy, but it also can cause hearing loss.
Speaker 1: Right if you completely block the thing that we use
Speaker 1: to hear, you can have substantially diminished hearing. And it
Speaker 1: can really exacerbate tintous or that ringing in your ear
Speaker 1: tonitics some people call it. I have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It also could set you up.
Speaker 1: For an ear infection because you're obviously blocking a tube,
Speaker 1: which anytime you do that can set you up for
Speaker 1: an infection. So this can happen for a few different reasons.
Speaker 1: Number one, if you just have very tight or very
Speaker 1: like snaky shaped ear canals, then you might be more
Speaker 1: prone to getting those blocked. So we might see this
Speaker 1: in small children who have smaller ear canals that they
Speaker 1: might have be more likely to get ear wax built up.
Speaker 1: Or if for whatever reason developmentally you have a different
Speaker 1: shape of ear canal, or if you just happen to
Speaker 1: be a person who makes a lot of ear wax
Speaker 1: and I don't have any statistics on who you are
Speaker 1: compared to anyone else. Yeah, So the biggest modifiable risk
Speaker 1: factors are using things like cotton swabs that you stick
Speaker 1: in your ear aus in.
Speaker 2: Don't use them because using them will lead to impaction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not only can they push the ear wax further in,
Speaker 1: which can lead to impaction, they also can create little
Speaker 1: microabrasions in your ear canal which can put you at
Speaker 1: risk for infection. Also, hearing aids or all of the
Speaker 1: earbuds that we use now, they just shove stuff down
Speaker 1: into your ear.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then, like we talked about, as we get older,
Speaker 1: our earwax gets drier, which can make it sometimes more
Speaker 1: likely to get stuck. But also the hairs that we
Speaker 1: see in the outer, like the very outer part, can
Speaker 1: just prevent all that earwax from leaving. So we actually
Speaker 1: see even though your ear canals are larger when you're older,
Speaker 1: we see more impaction in older adults than we do
Speaker 1: in younger adults or children. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, m hm. How do you manage impaction removal? How
Speaker 2: do you manage You're not supposed to use cotton swabs,
Speaker 2: So don't use cotton swabs.
Speaker 1: This is not a medical advice podcast, but please Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's impacted, like if you have true serumin impaction
Speaker 1: in your ear, then usually you're gonna need a little
Speaker 1: bit of help to get it out, though not always so.
Speaker 1: In the office, we might use something that's like a
Speaker 1: spray bottle with a special hose nozzle on the end
Speaker 1: of it that we can stick just far enough but
Speaker 1: not too far into your ear canal and spray warm
Speaker 1: like lukewarm water, sometimes with hydrogen peroxide because the bubbles
Speaker 1: can help, and you just spray spray spraying until you
Speaker 1: can dislodge that thing. It's really really satisfying, like so satisfying.
Speaker 2: Sure videos exist on the internet.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, definitely. Sometimes we might use like a curette
Speaker 1: or something, or there's like little vacuum aspirators that, like
Speaker 1: the ant specialists might have to really suck it out,
Speaker 1: depending on how it's in there or at home. There's
Speaker 1: actually a lot of things that people can do that
Speaker 1: are safe to not only help to soften up something
Speaker 1: that might be stuck, but also just help get rid
Speaker 1: of earwax if you feel like you have too much
Speaker 1: of it. Though again, your ears are a self cleaning oven.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it all on their own without
Speaker 1: your help. But over the counter remedies might be even
Speaker 1: just putting water or like saline drops in the ear
Speaker 1: which can help to soften up dry ear wax, hydrogen
Speaker 1: peroxide or there's similar drops that are made of carbamide peroxide.
Speaker 1: That's like d Brox brand drops in the pharmacies here.
Speaker 1: Those basically just help to soften and the bubbles can
Speaker 1: kind of help to loosen up some of that wax
Speaker 1: so that it can come out on their own. Some
Speaker 1: people might use mineral oil, which is totally safe to use,
Speaker 1: but in general, the goal is just to keep that
Speaker 1: ear wax soft enough that your ear can do its
Speaker 1: job of getting it out on its own. Ear candling
Speaker 1: is a thing I want to mention real quick because
Speaker 1: you heard about it in our first hand accounting. The
Speaker 1: claim apparently on how it works is that it creates
Speaker 1: a negative pressure in your ear canal to draw out
Speaker 1: the wax.
Speaker 2: I did not know that was the claim.
Speaker 1: Apparently that's the claim. It also apparently is supposedly this
Speaker 1: negative pressure also helps to treat other non ear wax
Speaker 1: related things like allergic rhinitis or like sinus pressure in general.
Speaker 1: So notwithstanding the fact that you can legitimately just be
Speaker 1: setting yourself on fire, as you heard in our first
Speaker 1: hand account, you can also end up with wax that
Speaker 1: is not the ear variety, the candle variety, that gets
Speaker 1: stuck in your ear, which can potentially cause really serious
Speaker 1: damage to the tympanic membrane. And not only is there
Speaker 1: no evidence in the literature that it works, there is
Speaker 1: actually at least one study that shows that it does
Speaker 1: not work and actually creates deposits of candle wax even
Speaker 1: if you don't have like visible candle wax. Like in
Speaker 1: our first hand account, it was obviously like a big
Speaker 1: deal chunks got stuck. But even in this other study
Speaker 1: there was just like deposits of like debris from the
Speaker 1: smoke and the wax in the ear without removing any
Speaker 1: wax whatsoever.
Speaker 2: So you're just start adding gunk to.
Speaker 1: Your ear, to your ear without removing any actual ear
Speaker 1: wax whatsoever. Also, no negative pressure was created in this study.
Speaker 1: They used like a fake ear canal and they put
Speaker 1: an ear candle in it and they measured the pressure.
Speaker 1: No negative pressure differential created, and they found all of
Speaker 1: this like just stuff that was deposited in the ears,
Speaker 1: I mean, without getting any ear wax out.
Speaker 2: So it seems like there's no there seemed to be
Speaker 2: no clear benefits whatsoever. Benefit just the well on the
Speaker 2: list of cons and potentially severe.
Speaker 1: Outcomes, severe outcomes, and that is Aaron earwax beautiful.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I think it's my shortest episode ever. Please tell me
Speaker 1: everything I want to know from you.
Speaker 2: God, There's so there's so much. It's going to be great. Okay. Wait.
Speaker 2: One of the true absolute joys of doing this podcast
Speaker 2: is discovering that there's like a whole world of study
Speaker 2: out there about a topic that, on the surface seems
Speaker 2: pretty mundane. Earx, earx. Earwax didn't immediately strike me as
Speaker 2: a topic of fascination. Despite being like, we should do
Speaker 2: earwax next and pushing to do it classic, I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I knew that it was probably important for ear health
Speaker 2: and that you shouldn't use cotton swabs to remove wax
Speaker 2: from your ears, but that was basically the limit of
Speaker 2: my knowledge. As it turns out, earwax is, like our
Speaker 2: quarantine suggests, a true gold mine of information. I came
Speaker 2: across papers discussing earwax in the context of human migration,
Speaker 2: art history, forensic analysis, and anthropogenic change. What I am now,
Speaker 2: I'm a convert, I'm a believer. I love it, and
Speaker 2: I think hopefully by the end of this history section
Speaker 2: you might be too, or at least you'll have a
Speaker 2: couple pieces of trivia to impress your friends with at
Speaker 2: the next party.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. No, I love that.
Speaker 2: Ear wax has been a subject of at least minor
Speaker 2: medical interest for millennia, mostly in the context of its
Speaker 2: removal or what it signifies for total body health. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, Hippocrates apparently viewed sweet earwax as an unfavorable symptom,
Speaker 2: while bitter ear wax meant that you were in good health.
Speaker 1: So people were out here just tasting earwax.
Speaker 2: That's that is what I wrote. I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't I can't think of any other way that you
Speaker 2: can judge bitter versus sweet besides your taste buds. And so, yeah,
Speaker 2: Hippocrates is out there going taste your patient's earwax.
Speaker 1: I mean, they tasted a lot of urine, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't surprise.
Speaker 2: It shouldn't surprise, but it did surprise, and my capacity
Speaker 2: for surprise is still is still present.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: It's good. You know, there's wonder left in this world exactly,
Speaker 2: And of course the typical recipes of unlikely ingredients for removal,
Speaker 2: things like milk, cinnamon, mirrhr, almond, oyle, saffron. These were
Speaker 2: described to cure earache or remove earwax.
Speaker 1: I saw allmond oil listed still today, so that one's interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is olive oil, but.
Speaker 1: Not I don't know, I don't know what I read.
Speaker 2: As far back as the second century, Celsus, who is
Speaker 2: a Greek philosopher and physician, suggested using water to flush
Speaker 2: out foreign bodies and potentially earwax impactions, so or ahead
Speaker 2: of his time. Then the suggestion his suggestion to use
Speaker 2: quote the saliva of a hungry man end quote, to
Speaker 2: treat a larval infestation in the ear, which is like
Speaker 2: so many questions, there, so many questions.
Speaker 1: The saliva of a hungry man. Yeah, where does one
Speaker 1: get this? How hungry do they have to be? How
Speaker 1: much saliva does it all have to come from the
Speaker 1: same man or can it be from multiple hungry.
Speaker 2: Well, it says a hungry man, not the saliva of
Speaker 2: hungry men.
Speaker 1: Okay, and what larva are infesting your ear?
Speaker 2: I mean you described cockroaches? Yeah, but okay, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I apologize for that haunting thought, but I read it,
Speaker 2: so now you have to read it, thank you, Just
Speaker 2: like the booger taste thing last week. Over the centuries,
Speaker 2: physicians became more interested in earwax in the context of
Speaker 2: ear health and hearing overall. It was recognized by the
Speaker 2: late seventeen hundreds that earwax held several important functions, including
Speaker 2: preventing dirt and insects from injuring the ear drum. They
Speaker 2: seemed particularly preoccupied by insects. Quote. The yellow humor purged
Speaker 2: by the ears defendeth them against fleas, little flies, and
Speaker 2: other small worms and beasts that might otherwise enter within
Speaker 2: them end quote.
Speaker 1: So it's not just me who has a like fear
Speaker 1: of creepy caralis in my ears.
Speaker 2: No, I think that's a reasonable thing to fear, thank you. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 2: sorry if I imply that it wasn't. I also fear
Speaker 2: the year.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: And so you you described how ear wax you're producing
Speaker 2: it continuously. It's just going out of your ears continuously.
Speaker 2: And this continuous production was shown by a professor who
Speaker 2: carried out a very simple experiment. I think this is
Speaker 2: in the seventeen hundreds, just by wiping his ears with
Speaker 2: a piece of black velvet one hundred times an hour,
Speaker 2: and no matter how many times he wiped, there was
Speaker 2: always a little bit of wax on the cloth. I've
Speaker 2: just loved that imagery.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Physicians also noted several cases where someone's hearing improved or
Speaker 2: worsened depending on earwax compaction or removal, and so in
Speaker 2: this way, earwax kind of helped to turn hearing into
Speaker 2: a more fluid, dynamic state where it could be permanent
Speaker 2: or temporary, It could change over the course of your life,
Speaker 2: and it could be partial or complete. Earwax related deafness
Speaker 2: was apparently not uncommon or other issues related to earwax compaction.
Speaker 2: So the seventeenth century scientist Robert Hook described his month's
Speaker 2: long experience with tenitis or tindas and impaired hearing that
Speaker 2: was ultimately found to be caused in part by a
Speaker 2: hard compacted stone of earwax, which was not a rare occurrence.
Speaker 2: All sorts of remedies were employed and attempts to remove earwax,
Speaker 2: like applying heat, plugging the ear with perfumed wool or
Speaker 2: cotton to try to stimulate the flow, liquid injections with
Speaker 2: various ingredients. Hook used warmed honey that he wriggled in
Speaker 2: his ear. Okay, yeah, I feel like that would attract bugs.
Speaker 1: Yeah honey. Yeah sounds real sticky.
Speaker 2: It sounds sticky the logic. But he used it warmed
Speaker 2: and that you know, I'm not saying that that's any better.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that that logic of warming something that
Speaker 2: heat to help remove earwax that held support in the
Speaker 2: lab actually is where it was found to be supported.
Speaker 2: In the late seventeen hundreds, a chemist who had become
Speaker 2: interested in the topic. He had a friend with prodigious
Speaker 2: ear wax production. I think it was the same guy
Speaker 2: who did the black velvet ear wax extremes, Okay, And
Speaker 2: he supplied the chemist with heaps of earwax, and he
Speaker 2: discovered that it hardened over time, it melted with heat,
Speaker 2: and it dissolved in water.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. So yeah, do you know what's also interesting
Speaker 1: about warm things in your ear versus cold? This is
Speaker 1: like a separate topic entirely. But if you put cold
Speaker 1: water in your ear, Like if you used cold water
Speaker 1: to try and juj out your ear wax instead of
Speaker 1: warm water, it would make you super dizzy. It would
Speaker 1: give us really really wild vertigo because it does a
Speaker 1: weird thing that messes with your inner ear. Cold water
Speaker 1: versus warm water. Why I don't it's a different episode
Speaker 1: next week, next not next week, next week.
Speaker 2: Next week, we're doing cholesterol colors. But when all l's fails,
Speaker 2: any of your honey, whatever situations fail, there's always physical removal.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ear spoons or ear scoops were popular devices, and what
Speaker 2: was appealing about these tools was that you could just
Speaker 2: own one yourself and you didn't have to seek out
Speaker 2: a doctor. If you're like, hey, I you know, can
Speaker 2: you clean my ear out? No, you didn't have to
Speaker 2: do that. Ear scoops have been around for millennia, as
Speaker 2: evidenced by historical writings and archaeological finds. But similar to
Speaker 2: the way there are just so many parallels between earwax
Speaker 2: and boogers. So with boogers, you know, I talked about handkerchiefs,
Speaker 2: and they became status symbols and they transcended their role
Speaker 2: as just a snotrag. A market of decorative grooming tools grew,
Speaker 2: and there are examples of these really intricately and ornately
Speaker 2: carved earpicks and ear scoops. Really yeah, little ear scoop,
Speaker 2: beautiful ear scoops. There's one. There's a paper you can
Speaker 2: see an image of this. There was one that was
Speaker 2: found at Jamestown, the English colony established in what is
Speaker 2: now Virginia in sixteen oh seven, and in like the
Speaker 2: first iteration of that town, they found in archaeological digs
Speaker 2: a combination toothpick and ear scoop. It's shaped like a dolphin,
Speaker 2: and so the toothpick part comes out of its little mouth,
Speaker 2: and then there's an ear scoop coming out of its
Speaker 2: tail wo and then it has a little loop on
Speaker 2: its back, and so you could wear it as a
Speaker 2: necklace what and carry it around with a little ear scoop.
Speaker 2: Who knew?
Speaker 1: Who knew? I definitely did not know.
Speaker 2: That I did not, And also I was like, dolphin,
Speaker 2: why why a dolphin? Yeah? And apparently sea creatures were
Speaker 2: featured heavily in jewelry and decorative items at the time
Speaker 2: because maritime supremacy was blossoming in England. And I just
Speaker 2: was like, that's very that's very interesting, because there was
Speaker 2: another ear scoop found somewhere in England that was similar
Speaker 2: and they were like, we think it's a dolphin, it
Speaker 2: might be a fish, it's some sort of marine or creature. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but these ear scoop tools also signify that earwax was
Speaker 2: not solely relegated to the realm of medicine. Everyone was
Speaker 2: individually concerned with it. It was just a routine part
Speaker 2: of life to clean out your ears, and those who
Speaker 2: could afford to do so often had their ears cleaned
Speaker 2: out by a barber who use special tools to scoop
Speaker 2: out any crud there. And this is referenced in place.
Speaker 2: So there's a play I believe from the seventeen hundreds
Speaker 2: where a soldier worries that the king has had his
Speaker 2: ears picked too much, and so he has no protection
Speaker 2: from flies, from earwigs and from flattery. He's like, anyone
Speaker 2: has the ear of the king with his ears cleaned
Speaker 2: of earwax.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so funny, hilarious.
Speaker 2: And there are occasionally hints at the recognition that earwax
Speaker 2: holds some value, like the situation that I just described
Speaker 2: where it's like, well, we need some ear wax there.
Speaker 2: Mostly it was considered a waste product or junk, as
Speaker 2: you put it, junk.
Speaker 1: So sorry for calling it.
Speaker 2: That, I accept. I accept your apology. And so. For instance,
Speaker 2: in Shakespeare's Troilis and Cressida, Agamemnon is described as not
Speaker 2: having quote so much brain as earwax. Quote devastating, devastating. Yeah,
Speaker 2: put that in your back pocket. Yeah right. In reality, however,
Speaker 2: earwax held far more uses than I would have guessed. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, in the American Frugal Housewife, which was written
Speaker 2: by Lydia Child in eighteen thirty two, holds ear wax
Speaker 2: in quite high regard. What quote, nothing is better than
Speaker 2: earwax to prevent the painful effects resulting from a wound
Speaker 2: by a nail skewer, et cetera. It should be put
Speaker 2: on as soon as possible. Those who are troubled with
Speaker 2: cracked lips have found this remedy successful when others have failed.
Speaker 2: It is one of those sorts of cures which are
Speaker 2: very likely to be laughed at. But I know of
Speaker 2: it's having produced very beneficial results. So she's using it
Speaker 2: as vacine, using it as chapstick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, taking out the ear wax, put it on your cuts. Literally,
Speaker 1: I have like an aqua force stick that I do
Speaker 1: that with, not earwax. Okay, yeah, uh huh yeah, ear
Speaker 1: wax on your lips. I don't know if I'm going
Speaker 1: to try that.
Speaker 2: I don't. I mean, you can.
Speaker 1: You're certainly entitled to got enough earwax, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm a super producer as well. Me too.
Speaker 1: I've always felt that way, saying what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do about it?
Speaker 2: It's just it's life. It's life.
Speaker 1: Like you know, we probably make a very typical amount
Speaker 1: of ear wax.
Speaker 2: We probably do. We probably do.
Speaker 1: They're probably not special in any way. No wear earwax.
Speaker 2: No, we'll see. I mean, maybe somebody will do a
Speaker 2: paper and we'll revisit this topic and discover our specialness. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I didn't see it mentioned in The American Frugal Housewife,
Speaker 2: but the author may have also been familiar with the
Speaker 2: common practice of using earwax while stitching and sewing. It's
Speaker 2: really great at keeping the ends of cut thread from unraveling.
Speaker 1: I could see that, actually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so in fact, there are some bodkins which
Speaker 2: are these like large blunted needles with a big eye
Speaker 2: to hold ribbon, kind of like a tapestry needle you'd
Speaker 2: use to sew to weaven ends, but like bigger. Yeah,
Speaker 2: some of these have ear scoops on the end of them.
Speaker 1: So that you can scoop and then use it for
Speaker 1: your best is so interesting.
Speaker 2: Right wow. Ear wax was also favored by many artists,
Speaker 2: who used it to help bind pigment to the paper
Speaker 2: or other surfaces they were working on. So I asked
Speaker 2: you to find a paper for me because I couldn't
Speaker 2: find it. And this is what this is what was
Speaker 2: inside that paper. Okay, I didn't read it, Okay, okay,
Speaker 2: good spoilers. Yeah. So you know illuminated manuscripts, those beautiful
Speaker 2: books with intricate color, colorful decorations or illustrations around the side,
Speaker 2: and they were like all hand drawn and everything. The
Speaker 2: Book of Kel's is a famous one if you want
Speaker 2: to look up, like a really exceptionally beautiful example. But
Speaker 2: apparently many illustrators of these manuscripts were regular users of
Speaker 2: earwax to prevent bubbles from forming in their metallic paint mixtures.
Speaker 2: What and so the author of a paper that I
Speaker 2: read about this actually tried it out himself. He made
Speaker 2: a couple of bronze pigment egg white mixtures, one that
Speaker 2: had earwax added to it and one without. You mix
Speaker 2: them together. Of course egg white's going to create bubbles
Speaker 2: and it's and he was like, yeah, there were fewer
Speaker 2: bubbles in the earwax one. And then he used it
Speaker 2: to like paint. I think UCSF it was the example.
Speaker 2: It must have been, that must have been where he was. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but one that so he compared the one that had
Speaker 2: ear wax and the one that didn't, and you can
Speaker 2: kind of see that the one with ear wax is
Speaker 2: smoother and the color seems more consistent. So any artists
Speaker 2: who are out there listening who've been struggling blending ear
Speaker 2: or egg whites into paints, try it to have a
Speaker 2: ear wax, let us know, let us know how it goes.
Speaker 1: They probably use like artificial things now that are just
Speaker 1: that have waxes in them or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might not eat ear wax, like get purpose.
Speaker 1: Did that guy use his own ear wax or someone else's.
Speaker 2: I believe he used his own.
Speaker 1: Interesting. I wonder if it depends, like if it got
Speaker 1: to be wet ear wax or is dry ear wax okay?
Speaker 2: Right? Which I mean? So that's a great question. I
Speaker 2: think he I think, I mean he said he had
Speaker 2: wet earwax, okay, But I don't know if he experimented.
Speaker 2: That could be another Bat'll be another paper, other paper,
Speaker 2: someone someone get a master's thesis at the very least, right.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a more powerful resource than I expected. Rich,
Speaker 2: not just in the application of the stuff itself, but
Speaker 2: also what it can tell us about ourselves. So Aarin,
Speaker 2: you mentioned that there are basically two types of earwax
Speaker 2: and humans, dry and wet, and there might be some
Speaker 2: that fall in between, but for the most part, the
Speaker 2: distinction seems to be pretty clear, like pretty night and day,
Speaker 2: and it is strongly associated with ancestry, like you mentioned,
Speaker 2: So people with East Asian ancestry tend to have dry earwax,
Speaker 2: those of European and African ancestry have wet earwax, and
Speaker 2: those who have Southern Asian Pacific Islands, Central Asian, Native
Speaker 2: North American, and Inuit have intermediate proportions of wet and dry.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, And this observation first started to garner attention
Speaker 2: around the mid twentieth century, and researchers made note of
Speaker 2: a couple of things. It was also associated with armpit odor,
Speaker 2: So those who have wet earwax have much more odoriferous pits,
Speaker 2: we have stinkyr armpit have stinky pits, agreed, And it
Speaker 2: seemed to follow a pretty straightforward pattern of inheritance. And
Speaker 2: just how straightforward was determined in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: and this is when researchers publish their results that the
Speaker 2: difference between dry and wet earwax was down to one
Speaker 2: letter change in one gene of our DNA, one single
Speaker 2: nucleotide polymorphism.
Speaker 1: That's so weird.
Speaker 2: Yes, just one nucleotide changes earwax composition and has strong
Speaker 2: associations with armput odor.
Speaker 1: And the drier earwax is well, and that makes sense
Speaker 1: because it's all apricrine gland secretions, right, which is like
Speaker 1: what your armpit odor is, why that is there and
Speaker 1: your earwax your earwax.
Speaker 2: And it follows this dominant recessive Mendelian inheritance, which is
Speaker 2: the thing that you learn about in school and it's basic,
Speaker 2: basic jicks. But you so, if you have two copies
Speaker 2: of the G version, which is the wet earwax version
Speaker 2: or one G in one a wet earwax. But if
Speaker 2: you have two copies of the A version that's the
Speaker 2: nucleotide substitution, then you have dry.
Speaker 1: Earwax and you're less stinky, and you're.
Speaker 2: Less stinky, and so for context, I feel like eye
Speaker 2: color is often taught as a simple Mendelian trait involves
Speaker 2: at least sixteen genes, if not more. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 2: this is very interesting and I didn't go down this
Speaker 2: rabbit hole. But in addition to being associated with earwax
Speaker 2: type and armpit odor, this same letter swap might be
Speaker 2: associated with the amount of colostrum produced, with people with
Speaker 2: dry earwax producing less colostrum.
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Yeah, also apricin glands.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So like what yeah, yeah, how interesting. So does
Speaker 2: earwax type matter or was it just like a random
Speaker 2: mutation that's spread And it seems like it might actually matter,
Speaker 2: although it's unclear why. So. Some researchers suggest that it
Speaker 2: could be because of the cold. As humans migrated out
Speaker 2: of Africa and spread across Eurasia, cold temperatures would have
Speaker 2: had would have been a strong selection pressure and So
Speaker 2: the dry earwax phoenotype emerged around forty five thousand years
Speaker 2: ago in North and east North or East Asia, where
Speaker 2: it was colder, and it's thought that maybe the reduced
Speaker 2: sweating could have been an advantage or the reduced stinking.
Speaker 2: I don't yeah, I don't know. But in any case,
Speaker 2: like what these researchers have proposed is that because it's
Speaker 2: so widespread, it seems like there is some positive selection.
Speaker 2: It seems like it was like this is selected for it,
Speaker 2: not just like it happened to spread.
Speaker 1: Right, not just random, because it's too too prevalent for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's that's the idea. How interesting, Okay, So
Speaker 2: earwax can tell us about human migration, it can be
Speaker 2: used as a lip bomb. It's great if you're illustrating
Speaker 2: a medieval illuminated manuscript, and it can be analyzed to
Speaker 2: tell us about the individual that produced it. So there's
Speaker 2: some interest, and I don't know how much interest in
Speaker 2: in the forensic applications of earwax analysis, things like tobacco exposure,
Speaker 2: cortisol levels, et cetera, stuff like that in your earwax.
Speaker 2: And so there's there's more. I mean, because your ear
Speaker 2: wax is also like.
Speaker 1: It's being exposed, just like you no right to the
Speaker 1: outside world. Yes, you're getting other junk stuck in your
Speaker 1: That's why I say junk erin defending myself.
Speaker 2: Debris. You didn't know about chapstick and right idea. Now
Speaker 2: that you know, you won't make that same mistake. But
Speaker 2: that's just the uses of human earwax. Oh oh yeah,
Speaker 2: because humans are not the only producers of this glorious stuff.
Speaker 2: Seruminous glands the glass that produce earwax are widespread among mammals, dogs, raccoons, pigs, goats, foxes, cats, whales, whales.
Speaker 2: Whales have ears. Oh yeah, okay, there are some fascinating
Speaker 2: papers on whale cetacean hearing that I really enjoyed. Okay, yeah, okay, whales.
Speaker 2: So this is now we've arrived at the last and
Speaker 2: my personal favorite chapter in the air wax story.
Speaker 1: Me too.
Speaker 2: All cetaceans, whales, dolphins, porpoises evolved from a land dwelling,
Speaker 2: carnivorous cat like creature that began its aquatic journey around
Speaker 2: fifty million years ago. Going from land to water is
Speaker 2: a heck of a transition, and so many different aspects
Speaker 2: of anatomy and physiology had to change to allow for
Speaker 2: that to happen. Like hearing, which in land dwellers is
Speaker 2: done using air adapted ears, when whales evolve of those
Speaker 2: ears and they're hearing more generally adapted to an aquatic environment,
Speaker 2: but the canals and the wax that they produced did
Speaker 2: not simply disappear. Instead, bayleen whales keep producing ear wax
Speaker 2: that accumulates over their entire life, rather than getting continuously
Speaker 2: expelled like ours.
Speaker 1: What yeah, what does that do?
Speaker 2: Okay? Over time, these waxy layers form an earplug that
Speaker 2: is centimeters long, like twenty five centimeters in one adult
Speaker 2: male blue whale. A long whale earplug. You can look
Speaker 2: up pictures of these. I will, yes, okay, but that's
Speaker 2: not even the coolest part, Like it just keeps getting cooler.
Speaker 2: What is amazing about these layers is that they're distinct,
Speaker 2: about two formed every year, so they're predictable in their
Speaker 2: deposition stop it, and their color corresponds to times of
Speaker 2: like feeding migration. People have used these ear plugs to
Speaker 2: estimate the age of whales like tree rings, tree rings,
Speaker 2: and that's they've used this for a while. But what
Speaker 2: they're doing now is even cooler than that. Researchers are
Speaker 2: using these ear plugs to detect layer specific levels of hormones, contaminants,
Speaker 2: and other compounds, and so you end up getting a
Speaker 2: more detailed picture of what a whale's entire life was. Like,
Speaker 2: what time is this where you thought this would go?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: No, I know, I was so excited when I was
Speaker 2: reading these papers. So, for instance, there was a blue,
Speaker 2: a male blue whale that was killed in a boat
Speaker 2: collision and was found to be around twelve years old.
Speaker 2: Based on these the earplug, his testosterone spiked enormously a
Speaker 2: couple years prior, which is when he reached sexual maturity,
Speaker 2: and his corticol increased over his lifetime, and most of
Speaker 2: the contaminants that he was exposed to occurred in the
Speaker 2: first six months of his life, which suggested transfer through
Speaker 2: gestation and lactation, which is really depressing.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, that's just one whale.
Speaker 1: One whale, one ear plug.
Speaker 2: One ear plug, And as it turns out, people have
Speaker 2: been collecting and preserving whale ear plugs for decades.
Speaker 1: Just should surprise me, I know.
Speaker 2: Shout out to natural history museums, to collections like we
Speaker 2: can learn so much it's been unbelievable. And so that
Speaker 2: same research group who did this study on this single
Speaker 2: male blue whale looked at cortisol levels in twenty preserved
Speaker 2: whale ear plugs collected from eighteen seventy to twenty sixteen. Wow,
Speaker 2: And they found that cortisol was which is associated with stress. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's one of our stress hormones, one of our stress hormones.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They found so essential for life functioning, like it
Speaker 1: is essentral life to be alive, right, yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: And what they found was that cortisol was pretty closely
Speaker 2: tied to whaling counts, as in years where more whales
Speaker 2: were hunted were more stressful for whales. So the higher
Speaker 2: the whaling count, the higher and above whales killed, the
Speaker 2: higher the cortisol level and the whale in the whale
Speaker 2: earplugs they collected. The exception is World War Two, when
Speaker 2: whaling counts were low but stress was high, no doubt
Speaker 2: due to the war also being explosions and submuntins and
Speaker 2: all that. And this relationship was especially pronounced in the
Speaker 2: years following nineteen seventy two, when the Marine Mammal Protection
Speaker 2: Act was passed just a big drop in cortisol levels.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. And that drop remained fairly low until you
Speaker 2: get to the past few decades where courtisol increases again
Speaker 2: in certain years. Why abnormally warm sea surface temperatures.
Speaker 1: In those years to global warming? Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: And the relationship between this is just like it is
Speaker 2: it's very grim, right, Like this research is so grim,
Speaker 2: but it is vital.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: These earplugs are able to show us something that has
Speaker 2: been kind of hard to measure in certain populations or
Speaker 2: in certain situations especially, I mean, cetaceans are incredibly difficult,
Speaker 2: so hard to study long term as well, and so
Speaker 2: these ear plugs being able to show us the non
Speaker 2: lethal human impact on organisms is incredibly important and tell
Speaker 2: you so much, yes, like oh wow, yeah, so will
Speaker 2: we do anything with that information that's remaining? But that
Speaker 2: is all that I have on earwas wow.
Speaker 1: And I have not thought about whale ears.
Speaker 2: Okay, there are some papers and there is a researcher.
Speaker 2: I watched a video of hers on I think it
Speaker 2: was like an old PBS video or something like that,
Speaker 2: and she was so engaging and wonderful and I just
Speaker 2: I really liked it. There was one of the papers
Speaker 2: I will shout out at the kind as soon as
Speaker 2: I find the name of it.
Speaker 1: But I love it. Their ears are just like flat,
Speaker 1: just like holes, right.
Speaker 2: They're small, but then they use a lot of like
Speaker 2: jaw fat or something like that that absorbed and I
Speaker 2: didn't I yeah, I should have spent more time learning
Speaker 2: about ear or whale hearing overall.
Speaker 1: But okay, this wasn't an episode about hearing. I didn't
Speaker 1: talk about hearing at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How interesting though, Yeah, wow, I want to know so
Speaker 1: much more. People can learn more, which aware can learn more.
Speaker 2: I have a bunch of sources all over the place,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to shout out a few here. If
Speaker 2: you want to learn more about hearing in wales overall,
Speaker 2: there's Darlene Kenton is the researcher that I was thinking of.
Speaker 2: And there's a paper from nineteen ninety seven that I
Speaker 2: liked called Structure and Function in Whale Ears. And then
Speaker 2: if you want to check out that paper on the
Speaker 2: whale cortisol levels over time, there's a paper by trumble
Speaker 2: at All from twenty eighteen called Baleen Whale cortisol levels
Speaker 2: reveal a physiological response to twentieth century whaling and then
Speaker 2: a couple more. So there's that paper about wet versus
Speaker 2: dry earwax and how it's just one snip, and that's
Speaker 2: by Ohashi at All from twenty eleven, and then ear
Speaker 2: Wax and Art History by Petrakis from two thousand called
Speaker 2: Earmarks of Art History, Seruman and Medieval Art, and a
Speaker 2: lot more.
Speaker 1: I also have a number of papers, but the two
Speaker 1: that were cited in every other paper effort that I
Speaker 1: read were one from nineteen ninety seven by Rosa and
Speaker 1: Bala Chanda that was called Physiology, Pathophysiology and Anthropology slash
Speaker 1: Epidemiology of Human earcanal Secretions from the Journal of the
Speaker 1: American Academy of Audiology, and then one from nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four by Alberti called Epithelial Migration on the tympanic Membrane.
Speaker 1: It was actually really interesting. I don't read a lot
Speaker 1: of papers from the sixties, but I always get a
Speaker 1: kick out of it when I get to.
Speaker 2: I love reading papers from the sixties. Sometimes it's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just they're so different in vibe, so different, they're
Speaker 2: so different. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I have a bunch of papers on like
Speaker 1: Impacted the Room and and s Room and impaction and
Speaker 1: how we deal with it, and then a few as
Speaker 1: well on the ear candling business. You can find all
Speaker 1: of these sources on our website, This podcast will Kill
Speaker 1: You dot com under the episodes tab.
Speaker 2: You certainly can a big thank you to Bloodmobile for
Speaker 2: providing the music for this episode and all of our episodes.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you to Leanna and Tom and Mark
Speaker 1: and Pete and Jessica and everyone. There's like so many
Speaker 1: people to sink exactly right. Network, Thank you all for me.
Speaker 1: Thank you as possible.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you also to anyone who you know watches
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Speaker 2: Until next time, wash your hands
Speaker 1: You feelthy animals