Listen to the ears.The human ear emits soft sounds both in the absence of external stimulation and in response to noise, scientists recently reorted. While the biological value of this ear sound is unknown, it is expected to be a valuable tool for studying the workings of the inner ear. Brenda L. Lonsbury-Martin, Alfred C. Coats and their colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine Baylor College of Medicine is a private medical school located in Houston, Texas, USA on the grounds of the Texas Medical Center. It has been consistently rated the top medical school in Texas and among the best in the United States. in Houston now report a survey of monkey ears. The researchers sealed miniature microphones into the external ear canals ear canal n. The narrow, tubelike passage through which sound enters the ear. Also called external auditory canal. of 41 macques, 10 baboons and 10 squirrel monkeys squirrel monkey Any of several species (genus Saimiri, family Cebidae) of arboreal New World monkeys, found in groups of up to several hundred during the day in riverside forests of Central and South America. They eat fruit, insects, and small animals. . Only three monkeys, all macques, displayed multiple spontaneous emissions Spontaneous emission is the process by which a light source such as an atom, molecule, nanocrystal or nucleus in an excited state undergoes a transition to the ground state and emits a photon. . In contrast, in human studies investigators have detected such emissions in almost half their subjects. The band-width, frequency and level of the monkey ear emissions were similar to those reported for humans, so the low incidence is probably due not to differences in inner er structures but rather to the mechanism that generates the ear sounds. |
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