Ear witness

• Autores: Christie Wilcox
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3157-3158, 2017, págs. 67-69
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • You can tell yourself you haven't been too naughty over the festive season. You may even be able to convince others. But whether it's an extra portion of Christmas pudding, too many glasses of wine or even the odd cigarette, the proof of your indulgences may be lurking somewhere altogether more surprising--inside your ears. Earwax can easily be dismissed as a little gross and something to get rid of, but we are fast discovering that it is more than just another bodily secretion. All sorts of secrets about you are collected in it. More formally, the glop in your ears is called cerumen, and it is made up of the secretions of the ceruminous glands--specialised sweat glands--and sebaceous glands in the outer ear canal. Most of these are waxy compounds, which clean the ear canal and protect it from drying out, as well as killing bacteria and trapping foreign bodies like dust and fungal spores.