Hearing!

Let me tell you something really cool.  I can hear you! Well, maybe not through the newspaper, but hearing is one of the five senses we use every day, and it's super important. Have you ever stopped to think how your ears let you hear your favorite song, your friend's laugh, or even a whisper across the room? I used to take it for granted, until I learned how amazing our ears really are. 

Sounds start with a sound wave. They travel through the air in waves (like ripples in water). Those waves get caught by our outer ear (the part you can see), and they travel down the ear canal. When they reach the eardrum they make it vibrate. Then, three teeny-tiny bones in the middle ear pick up those vibrations and amplify them (kind of like turning up the volume). The vibrations move into the cochlea, a spiral-shaped part of the inner ear filled with fluid and tiny hair cells. Those hairs move with the vibrations and turn them into electrical signals. Lastly, those signals travel through the auditory nerve to our brain, and the brain says, “Hey! That’s the sound of a puppy barking!” All that happens in a split second.

Guess what? Humans don’t have the best hearing out there.

Can an animal hear through its feet? Elephants can! Strange fact, Elephants can hear sound waves through their feet. They can hear low rumbles through the ground from miles away. Bats hear using something called echo location. That means the bat makes a sound and as the sound waves travel they bounce off of objects or prey. The sound waves bounce back toward the bat. Using this to hear the bat follows the sound waves until they find what they are looking for. The winner of most amazing ears goes to the greater wax moth! I know, weird, right? It really is not weird at all. This adaptation helps the moth hear predators that are very far away. Can you guess who the bats are looking for? They are looking for insects like the greater wax moth. Bats use echolocation to hear prey from far away. They are trying to find prey like insects including greater wax moths. It's like hide and seek in the animal world. Who do you think is going to win, the moth or the bat? 

Some people are born without hearing, or they lose it over time, and this is called deafness. This can happen because of genetics, damage to the ear or nerves, loud noises, injuries, or even infections. Without hearing, it can be hard to do a lot of things. Since sound travels by waves people who are hearing impaired can “feel” sounds like the beat of music. Did you know that the most common cause for hearing loss is caused by exposure to loud sounds? This means you should probably turn down the volume when using your earbuds. Turning down the volume is important because sound loss from loud noises is permanent. Meaning your hearing will never “grow” back.