Pod Insights This Podcast Will Kill You Ep 215 The Hidden Depths of Earwax About this episode In keeping with last week’s theme of “bodily excretions that are kinda gross that you don’t really think about but are actually really important”, we’re devoting this episode to earwax, aka cerumen. In one hour, we somehow manage to weave together stories of earwax impaction, misadventures in ear candling, glimpses of earwax in art history, and a whale of a tale as revealed by cetacean cerumen. The biology and history of earwax proves to be surprisingly rich and revealing and will have you second-guessing yourself as you reach for that cotton swab. Armed with this week’s episode on earwax and last week’s on boogers, you’ll be ready to take on even the most daunting office icebreaker.
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Transcript 0:01 Speaker 00 This is Exactly Right.
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1:45 Speaker 04 A 50-year-old woman presented to her GP following an episode of ear candling. After 15 minutes, the person performing the candling burned herself while attempting to remove the candle and spilled candle wax into the patient's right ear canal. On examination, a piece of candle wax was found in the patient's ear and she was referred to the local ear, nose and throat department. Under general anesthetic, a large mass of solidified yellow candle wax was removed from the deep meatus of the ear. The patient had a small perforation in her right tympanic membrane. Results of a pure tone audiogram showed a mild conductive hearing loss on the right side. At a follow-up appointment one month later, the perforation was still there and the patient's hearing had not improved.
3:18 Speaker 04 An account of why not to ear candle?
3:21 Speaker 05 I mean, just one example. Just one. That sounds horrific.
3:28 Speaker 04 Yep, I agree. Every single account of ear candling that I read was exactly like this. This particular account comes from an article from 2007 by Rafferty et al., published in The Canadian Family Physician that was titled, "Ear Candling: Should General Practitioners Recommend It?" The answer was no, by the way.
3:49 Speaker 05 Firmly, no. Wow, that's awful.
3:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:56 Speaker 05 That's awful.
3:56 Speaker 04 It's not great.
3:57 Speaker 05 Hi, I'm Erin Welsh.
3:59 Speaker 04 And I'm Erin Allman Updike.
4:01 Speaker 05 And this is This Podcast Will Kill You.
4:03 Speaker 04 Today, we're talking about earwax.
4:05 Speaker 05 Earwax.
4:07 Speaker 04 Continuing our bodily fluids.
4:10 Speaker 05 There's so much more that we... I've been mentally collecting them. There's saliva would be a great one. Belly button lint, what's in there? Toe jam.
4:21 Speaker 04 Dirt and skin cells? It's probably the same thing as toe jam, Erin.
4:26 Speaker 05 Well, we'll do an episode on it, maybe.
4:27 Speaker 04 Okay, can't wait.
4:28 Speaker 05 We'll have to see if there's enough material there.
4:31 Speaker 04 Boom, get it? Like, sorry.
4:34 Speaker 05 Absolutely done.
4:36 Speaker 04 Thank you.
4:36 Speaker 05 I am thrilled for this episode.
4:39 Speaker 04 I can't wait because I have nothing to contribute, but I really want to hear what you have to say.
4:45 Speaker 05 I'm sure that you, I mean, I want to know what, what makes up Earwax.
4:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, I have several pages of notes, but like, I'm here for you.
4:53 Speaker 05 I'm here for you.
4:55 Speaker 04 I love you.
4:56 Speaker 05 I love you. I also love Quarantini time.
5:00 Speaker 04 Me too. That's what time it is.
5:03 Speaker 05 How was that done? Was that nicely done?
5:05 Speaker 04 Really, really good. Loved it.
5:06 Speaker 05 Good, good.
5:07 Speaker 04 What are we drinking this week, Erin?
5:08 Speaker 05 We're drinking the gold mine.
5:10 Speaker 04 The gold mine.
5:11 Speaker 05 Yeah.
5:11 Speaker 04 Really dig it out.
5:12 Speaker 05 Not all Earwax is gold. Some of it is.
5:15 Speaker 04 So many different shades of-
5:17 Speaker 05 So many different shades of Earwax.
5:18 Speaker 04 Browns, grays, blacks, yellowish.
5:22 Speaker 05 Yeah, brown. Did you already say brown?
5:24 Speaker 04 I did, yeah.
5:25 Speaker 05 Okay, yeah.
5:25 Speaker 04 Lots of shades, though.
5:26 Speaker 05 Lots of shades within mustard. But we are, we're drinking, I mean, we named it Gold Mine because the amount of information that you can tell from Earwax is more than I ever expected.
5:39 Speaker 04 I didn't know that, Erin, so I-
5:42 Speaker 05 Plus, Earwax is a resource, like, not just informationally. Well, there's a lot to cover.
5:49 Speaker 04 I can't wait.
5:50 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah, I get ready.
5:51 Speaker 04 You're gonna tell me everything. What's in the gold mine?
5:55 Speaker 05 It's, I mean, we wanted to make it look gold-ish, you know? It's got pineapple juice, jalapeno simple syrup, and lime club soda. It's refreshing, delicious. This episode will come out summertime, I think, so it's great in the summer.
6:11 Speaker 04 It's great in the summer.
6:12 Speaker 05 In the northern hemisphere summer.
6:14 Speaker 04 You can find the full recipe on our website, thispodcastwithkylie.com, and all of our social media channels, which you should be following us if you're not already, because we're there posting things like this Quarantini recipe. Also-
6:30 Speaker 04 I don't remember what else. Rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to everyone who has left us a review. It really does help other people find this podcast and we'd like for like, I don't know, everyone to listen to it.
6:40 Speaker 05 Yeah.
6:41 Speaker 04 If you are watching on YouTube, hi.
6:43 Speaker 05 Hi.
6:44 Speaker 04 And we are there.
6:47 Speaker 05 On a website too.
6:48 Speaker 04 And a website we have called thispodcastwillkillyou.com. You can find transcripts, you can find sources from every episode, merch, patreon, bookshop.org, bookmo- bookmobile? Bloodmobile, who does the music?
7:01 Speaker 05 There's a lot. There's a lot. And I just, I know we always thank everyone at the end of these episodes, but I was thinking how there are, there's so much out there. Like, there are so many podcasts out there. There's so much media to listen to, to watch, et cetera. And the fact that people choose to engage with ours is really, it's really surreal and wonderful. And so, thank you for, for choosing to spend your time with us. It means the world, truly.
7:30 Speaker 04 It really does. It really does. Like, we love getting to make this podcast as like, our jobs.
7:36 Speaker 05 Yeah.
7:37 Speaker 04 And sharing everything that we learn with you. And I still can't believe that anyone listens. Truly. Every time, someone's like, "Oh, listen." I'm like, "Really?"
7:48 Speaker 05 Really? You've heard of this podcast? What?
7:51 Speaker 04 Why? Do you listen? But thank you.
7:55 Speaker 05 Thank you. Thank you.
7:57 Speaker 04 We appreciate it.
7:58 Speaker 05 We do. But enough, enough of all that. It's time for earwax.
8:03 Speaker 04 Earwax. Let's get into it.
8:05 Speaker 05 All right.
8:05 Speaker 04 Right after this break.
8:38 Speaker 04 Earwax.
8:40 Speaker 04 That's how I started.
8:42 Speaker 05 Good, I like it.
8:43 Speaker 04 All caps. So, we all know what it is. It's the junk in our ears. The official medical term for earwax is cerumen.
8:52 Speaker 05 Junk is, you know, I'm gonna take issue with that.
8:55 Speaker 04 I can't wait for you to take issue with that.
8:59 Speaker 04 So cerumen is this waxy substance that our ear makes. Our ear makes this in order to stay lubricated, to clean and protect our ear canal. And really, it functions a lot like the mucus in our nose, except it's kind of also completely different. So let's get into it, shall we?
9:17 Speaker 05 I was like, this is just ear boogers.
9:19 Speaker 04 It's ear boogers, yeah.
9:21 Speaker 05 More or less.
9:22 Speaker 04 But different. So it is a protective barrier, the same way that our nose mucus is. It is a little bit acidic. And so in being a little bit acidic, it keeps our ear canal acidic, which helps to inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi, which would really love to be able to grow in our ear canal. There was a 1994 paper, which I didn't read this paper, but I read a paper that quoted this paper that called the ear canal, quote, "the greenhouse of the human body," end quote, because of how much fungi would love to grow in our ear canal. And I was like, wouldn't we have a lot of moist, dark places?
10:04 Speaker 05 Yeah, there's, there's gotta be, I can think of many greenhouses.
10:07 Speaker 04 Me too.
10:08 Speaker 05 That just populate throughout our bodies.
10:10 Speaker 04 But anyways.
10:11 Speaker 05 The belly button being one of them, potentially.
10:13 Speaker 04 I mean, every mucus membrane, really.
10:16 Speaker 05 Every mucus membrane.
10:17 Speaker 04 Anyways, just like in our nose, in our ears, we have these glands just underneath the skin that are what produce the oily substance that ends up getting mixed with shed skin cells and debris that all together become our earwax.
10:36 Speaker 04 There's two types of glands. There are sebaceous glands, and we have sebaceous glands all over our body.
10:42 Speaker 05 Right.
10:42 Speaker 04 And sebaceous glands produce a substance called sebum, which is like this sort of oily type of substance. And then we also have in our ears these modified apocrine glands. And our apocrine glands are basically like our sweat glands are a type of apocrine gland as well. And these glands produce a variety of substances, including lipids, so like fats, wax, esters, alcohols, something called squalene, which is a kind of fatty substance, and cholesterol. And all of these get together, the secretions from our apocrine glands and the secretions from our sebum glands, and mix with our dead skin cells, which I find very fascinating
11:27 Speaker 04 because the cells in our ear, like our skin cells shed all the time, right? Like rub your hand against your skin and the top layer is sloughing off. Okay.
11:40 Speaker 05 Okay, it's sloughed. I've sloughed the top layer.
11:43 Speaker 04 That's happening in our ears as well. And it moves from the inside of our ear towards the outside of our ear. Like the cells do this shedding thing in a particular way. There's a paper from 1964 that like tracked the way that our ear canal sheds its own skin.
12:03 Speaker 05 How is it doing? Hairs?
12:06 Speaker 04 No. So here's what's so fascinating. It's not little hairs or little cilia. A big part of what moves the skin and all of the debris within it is our jaw movements. So when we are talking and chewing, it helps to move the earwax and these skin cells along the ear canal itself. And this is all our, technically, our outer ear, which is, our ear has three parts, inner, middle, and outer, and this is all the outer part. So from the tympanic membrane out towards the outside world. Cool?
12:39 Speaker 05 Okay. I have, very cool. I have a few questions.
12:42 Speaker 04 Give it to me.
12:42 Speaker 05 Where are these glands located? Are they located throughout our ear canal, just in our inner ear? Okay, so you're producing-
12:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, they're throughout our ear canal. This is all outer ear canal.
12:52 Speaker 05 This is all outer ear?
12:53 Speaker 04 All outer ear.
12:53 Speaker 05 Okay, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah.
12:55 Speaker 04 It feels like it's inner because it's inside of like the auricle or the pinna, which is like the visible part of your ear.
13:01 Speaker 05 The little hole, yeah.
13:02 Speaker 04 But it's, yeah, it's a canal that's like usually like an inch or so long. It can be a little bit windy, so it sometimes feels longer when you're looking in it, but...
13:11 Speaker 05 Okay. How much do we produce? And here's the other question, can you-
13:18 Speaker 04 I don't have an answer. Wait, I don't have an answer to that question, and it bothers me so much that I didn't see that anywhere. Do you have an answer?
13:25 Speaker 05 I don't have an answer. I mean, I, I had a hard time finding, I was trying to find the origin of these glands, the like ceruminous glands, and like, when did they evolve? And blah, blah, blah. And I, I mean, maybe my search terms weren't great, but I couldn't find anything. Okay. So then the other question is, does the amount that we produce, what affects it? And I was just thinking of like, if you're grinding your teeth at night, and that's an eight solid hours of just jaw movement.
13:52 Speaker 04 Jaw movement.
13:52 Speaker 05 Are you producing more earwax? Or are you moving more earwax? Is there an impact on earwax?
13:58 Speaker 04 That's an excellent question. I have literally no idea.
14:05 Speaker 04 I have no idea, but that's such an interesting question. So we do, our, our ear, the glands in our ears, the ceruminous glands, so the, the semin gland and the apocrine glands, they reduce in number as we get older. And so that's one thing that's going to affect how much earwax we make. So the older that you get, the less, the drier your earwax tends to be because you have less of these glands. Why? Don't ask me. I don't know. Um, except that like, I mean, your skin gets drier in general as you get older, right? So you're just losing sebum producing glands everywhere. I don't, I don't actually know.
14:35 Speaker 05 Why do they fall off? Yeah.
14:36 Speaker 04 Why do they fall off? Or they just kind of like, shh, dry up, you know?
14:40 Speaker 05 I mean.
14:42 Speaker 04 I get you.
14:43 Speaker 05 Physically fall off. Okay. What about ear hair?
14:46 Speaker 04 Ear hair. Ear hair also increases in number as we get older. And so the like, older people might have quite a lot of hair in their ears, especially males. And that can actually block the ear wax from coming all the way out. So it can contribute to cerumen impaction, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a minute.
15:03 Speaker 05 Why do we get more ear hair when we get older?
15:07 Speaker 04 I don't have, I don't have anything. So we get hair everywhere when we get older, right?
15:10 Speaker 05 Okay.
15:11 Speaker 04 We lose hair places.
15:12 Speaker 05 Body hair as an, as an episode.
15:14 Speaker 04 Listen, I'm down.
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17:11 Speaker 04 So there's two main types of earwax. It's usually split. There's wet earwax and there's dry earwax. And I think you're going to talk a little bit more about this distinction, Erin. But it's genetically determined, which I think is so interesting.
17:26 Speaker 05 Very interesting.
17:27 Speaker 04 Except that obviously it does also, like I said, get drier as we age. But the drier, flakier earwax, which some people have, is usually lighter in color. And it tends to be more common in people of Asian and Native American descent. And then the sticky, dark earwax, which is what I have.
17:46 Speaker 05 Same.
17:46 Speaker 04 Very sticky wax. It's more common in people of African and European descent.
17:53 Speaker 04 And apparently the dry, flaky earwax is like a recessive trait.
17:57 Speaker 05 Correct.
17:58 Speaker 04 You're going to tell me more about that. That's all I got about earwax. There's not, I tried to find if there was like a big literature about like, who's more likely to get earwax impaction or something like that. And there isn't a strong association between types of earwax. Like you can get too much of it, whether you have the dry, flaky stuff or the wet, sticky stuff.
18:18 Speaker 05 Okay, that's interesting. Okay.
18:19 Speaker 04 Yeah. And so, under typical or ideal conditions, our outer ear is kind of like a self-cleaning oven. Okay, so it makes this wax and then it pushes it out in order to keep our ear canals free of debris and bacteria and getting rid of all of these skin cells once they're dead and done. All right. The biggest complication that we see is when this mechanism, for one reason or another, doesn't go as planned. And so our earwax builds up and gets stuck inside of our ear canals. And this is called cerumen impaction.
18:55 Speaker 05 Why might that happen?
18:57 Speaker 04 Let me tell you, there's so many different reasons. It's probably the biggest earwax complaint, certainly like that you see in primary care or things like that. There's lots of other things that you can get stuck in your ear canal. Bugs and Legos and other small toys, very common.
19:13 Speaker 05 I feel like you have an ear invasion phobia. Am I remembering that correctly?
19:20 Speaker 04 I do. I love that you remember that and said it on a podcast for the world. I do. It's because of the Wrath of Khan.
19:27 Speaker 05 Okay.
19:28 Speaker 04 Okay. In The Wrath of Khan, they put a little like alien guy in, this is like the original Star Trek movie. They put a little alien like mind control guy and then in Animorphs, that's also how they control.
19:42 Speaker 05 The years, yeah. Is that what they're called? Wow.
19:44 Speaker 04 Something like that. Did you know they're making a series, Erin?
19:47 Speaker 05 I do know that. I am very excited about it.
19:50 Speaker 04 So excited about it.
19:51 Speaker 05 And I'm also nervous because like those books were very dark.
19:54 Speaker 04 I know. So we'll see how it goes.
19:56 Speaker 05 So we'll see what happens.
19:57 Speaker 04 But anyways, so yes, I do have a phobia of
20:03 Speaker 04 like mind control creatures being put into my ear.
20:06 Speaker 05 Specifically. I just figured it was like any bug.
20:09 Speaker 04 I mean, yeah, I don't like the idea of any bug. I've taken some cockroaches out of ears and it's not like a pleasant experience for the person who has the cockroach in their ear. Sorry.
20:21 Speaker 05 I regret going down this rabbit hole.
20:23 Speaker 04 Well, it's not, it's not great. Okay. But anyways, earwax, much more common to get stuck in your ears than other things. And the biggest issue that can happen from this is that if the earwax completely obscures your tympanic membrane, which is the thing that separates your outer ear from your middle ear, and this is like the membrane that allows us to hear, then not only can this be very uncomfortable, it can create this sensation of fullness, it can be very itchy, but it also can cause hearing loss, right? If you completely block the thing that we use to hear, you can have substantially diminished hearing. And it can really exacerbate tinnitus or that ringing in your ear, tinnitus some people call it.
21:07 Speaker 05 I have that, yep.
21:09 Speaker 04 It also could set you up for an ear infection because you're obviously blocking a tube, which anytime you do that can set you up for an infection. So this can happen for a few different reasons. Number one, if you just have very tight or very like snaky shaped ear canals, then you might be more prone to getting those blocked. So we might see this in small children who have smaller ear canals. They might have be more likely to get earwax buildup. Or if for whatever reason, developmentally, you have a different shape of ear canal. Or if you just happen to be a person who makes a lot of earwax and I don't have any statistics on who you are compared to anyone else.
21:47 Speaker 05 Yeah.
21:48 Speaker 04 So the biggest modifiable risk factors are using things like cotton swabs that you stick in your ear.
21:53 Speaker 05 As in, don't use them because using them will lead to impaction.
21:56 Speaker 04 Yeah. Not only can they push the earwax further in, which can lead to impaction, they also can create little micro abrasions in your ear canal, which can put you at risk for infection. Also, hearing aids or all of the earbuds that we use now, they just shove stuff down into your ear.
22:13 Speaker 05 Yeah.
22:14 Speaker 04 And then, like we talked about, as we get older, our earwax gets drier, which can make it sometimes more likely to get stuck, but also the hairs that we see in the outer, like the very outer part can just prevent all that earwax from leaving. So we actually see, even though your ear canals are larger, when you're older, we see more impaction in older adults than we do in younger adults or children.
22:37 Speaker 05 Wow.
22:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
22:41 Speaker 05 How do you manage impaction removal? How do you manage? You're not supposed to use cotton swabs, so.
22:50 Speaker 04 Don't use cotton swabs. This is not a medical advice podcast, but please.
22:54 Speaker 05 You're, yeah.
22:56 Speaker 04 If it's impacted, like if you have true serumen impaction in your ear, then usually you're going to need a little bit of help to get it out, though not always. So in the office, we might use something that's like a spray bottle with a special hose nozzle on the end of it that we can stick just far enough, but not too far into your ear canal and spray warm, like lukewarm water, sometimes with hydrogen peroxide, because the. Bubbles can help and you just spray, spray, spraying until you can dislodge that thing. It's really, really satisfying, like so satisfying.
23:29 Speaker 05 I'm sure videos exist on the internet.
23:31 Speaker 04 Oh, yes, definitely. Sometimes we might use like a curette or something, or there's like little vacuum aspirators that like the ENT specialist might have to really suck it out, depending on, on how it's in there. Or at home, there's actually a lot of things that people can do that are safe to not only help to soften up something that might be stuck, but also just help get rid of earwax if you feel like you have too much of it. Though again, your ears are a self-cleaning oven that's going to do it all on their own without your help. But over the counter remedies might be even just putting water or like saline drops in the ear, which can help to soften up dry earwax. Hydrogen peroxide, or there's similar drops that are made of carbamide peroxide.
24:14 Speaker 04 That's like D-Brocks brand drops in the pharmacies here. Those basically just help to soften and the bubbles can kind of help to loosen up some of that wax so that it can come out on their own. Some people might use mineral oil, which is totally safe to use. But in general, the goal is just to keep that earwax soft enough that your ear can do its job of getting it out on its own. Ear candling is a thing I want to mention real quick because you heard about it in our firsthand account.
24:42 Speaker 05 It's a thing.
24:43 Speaker 04 The claim apparently on how it works is that it creates a negative pressure in your ear canal to draw out the wax.
24:52 Speaker 05 I did not know that was the claim.
24:54 Speaker 04 Apparently that's the claim. It also apparently is, is supposedly, this negative pressure also helps to treat other non-earwax related things like allergic rhinitis or like sinus pressure in general.
25:07 Speaker 04 So notwithstanding the fact that you can legitimately just be setting yourself on fire, as you heard in our firsthand account, you can also end up with wax that is not the ear variety, the candle variety that gets stuck in your ear.
25:19 Speaker 05 Right.
25:20 Speaker 04 Which can potentially cause really serious damage to the tympanic membrane. And not only is there no evidence in the literature that it works, there is actually at least one study that shows that it does not work and actually creates deposits of candle wax, even if you don't have like visible candle wax, like in our firsthand account, it was obviously like a big deal.
25:43 Speaker 05 Yeah.
25:43 Speaker 04 Chunks got stuck, but even in in this other study, there was just like deposits of like debris from the smoke and the wax in the ear without removing any wax whatsoever. So you're just.
25:58 Speaker 05 Adding gunk to your ear canal.
26:01 Speaker 04 To your ear without removing any actual ear wax whatsoever. Also, no negative pressure was created in this study. They used like a fake ear canal and they put an ear candle in it and they measured the pressure, no negative pressure differential created and they found all of this like just stuff that was deposited in the ears.
26:18 Speaker 05 I mean.
26:19 Speaker 04 Without getting any ear wax out.
26:21 Speaker 05 So it seems like there's no, there, there seem to be no clear benefits whatsoever.
26:25 Speaker 04 No benefits whatsoever.
26:26 Speaker 05 Just a long list of cons and potentially severe outcomes.
26:30 Speaker 04 Severe outcomes.
26:31 Speaker 05 Okay.
26:32 Speaker 04 And that is, Erin, ear wax.
26:36 Speaker 05 Beautiful.
26:37 Speaker 04 Thank you. Thank you so much. I think it's my shortest episode ever. Please tell me everything I want to know from you.
26:46 Speaker 05 God, there is so, there is so much. It's going to be great.
26:51 Speaker 04 I can't wait.
26:54 Speaker 06 AI was supposed to make building simpler. Instead, people building with AI are navigating more models, tools and resources than ever. The challenge isn't finding AI resources. The challenge is finding the ones that matter. With endless documentation, tutorials and community threads, it can take longer to find the right path than to start building. That's where the Microsoft AI Innovators Hub comes in. Built for people turning AI ideas into working solutions, it brings together code samples, guided labs and practical guidance on choosing models, building agents and moving AI applications from. Prototype to production, and it's all in one place. Because the best way to learn AI is to build it. And that's exactly what you can do at the AI Innovators Hub.
27:40 Speaker 06 Explore the Microsoft AI Innovators Hub and start building. Visit aka.ms/ai-innovators. That's aka.ms/ai-innovators. Hey, what's up? This is Kelvin Washington from The Odd Couple with Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota.
28:22 Speaker 06 So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.
28:46 Speaker 05 One of the true absolute joys of doing this podcast is discovering that there's like a whole world of study out there about a topic that on the surface seems pretty mundane.
28:59 Speaker 04 Earwax.
29:00 Speaker 05 Earwax. Earwax didn't immediately strike me as a topic of fascination, despite being like, we should do earwax next and pushing to do it. Classic. I was like, okay, I knew that it was probably important for ear health and that you shouldn't use cotton swabs to remove wax from your ears, but that was basically the limit of my knowledge. As it turns out, earwax is, like our Quarantini suggests, a true goldmine of information. I came across papers discussing earwax in the context of human migration, art history, forensic analysis, and anthropogenic change.
29:41 Speaker 04 What?
29:42 Speaker 05 I am now, I'm a convert, I'm a believer.
29:45 Speaker 04 I love it.
29:46 Speaker 05 And I think hopefully by the end of this history section, you, you might be too. Or at least you'll have a couple of pieces of trivia to impress your friends with at the next party.
29:55 Speaker 04 I can't wait. No, I love that.
29:59 Speaker 05 Earwax has been a subject of at least minor medical interest for millennia, mostly in the context of its removal or what it signifies for total body health. So for instance Hippocrates apparently viewed sweet earwax as an unfavorable symptom, while bitter earwax meant that you were in good health.
30:19 Speaker 04 So people were out here just tasting earwax.
30:21 Speaker 05 That's, that is what I wrote. I was like, I don't, I can't think of any other way that you can judge bitter versus sweet besides your taste buds. And so, yeah, Hippocrates is out there going, taste your patient's earwax.
30:33 Speaker 04 I mean, they tasted a lot of urine, et cetera, so it shouldn't surprise.
30:36 Speaker 05 It shouldn't surprise, but it did surprise.
30:42 Speaker 05 My capacity for, for surprise is still, is still present.
30:45 Speaker 04 Still there. That's good. I think that's a good thing.
30:47 Speaker 05 It's good. You know, there's wonder left in this world.
30:52 Speaker 04 Exactly.
30:53 Speaker 05 And of course, the typical recipes of unlikely ingredients for removal, things like milk, cinnamon, myrrh, almond oil, saffron, these were described to cure earache or, or remove earwax.
31:06 Speaker 04 I saw almond oil listed still today, so that one's interesting.
31:09 Speaker 05 Yeah, it is interesting.
31:10 Speaker 04 Not olive oil.
31:12 Speaker 05 But not olive, I.
31:14 Speaker 04 I don't know.
31:15 Speaker 05 Don't know.
31:15 Speaker 04 That's what I read.
31:16 Speaker 05 As far back as the second century, Celsius, who was a Greek philosopher and physician, suggested using water to flush out foreign bodies and potentially earwax impactions. So, or ahead of his time, then the suggestion, his suggestion to use, quote, "the saliva of a hungry man," end quote, to treat a larval infestation in the ear. Which is like.
31:42 Speaker 04 So many questions there.
31:43 Speaker 05 So many questions.
31:44 Speaker 04 The saliva of a hungry man.
31:47 Speaker 05 Yep.
31:48 Speaker 04 Where does one get this? How hungry do they have to be?
31:53 Speaker 05 Right.
31:53 Speaker 04 How much saliva? Does it all have to come from the same man? Or can it be from multiple hungry?
31:58 Speaker 05 Well, it says a hungry man, not saliva of hungry men.
32:02 Speaker 04 Okay. And what larva are infesting your ear?
32:05 Speaker 05 I mean, you described cockroaches.
32:07 Speaker 04 Yeah, but.
32:09 Speaker 05 Okay, I don't know.
32:12 Speaker 05 I apologize for that haunting thought, but I read it, so now you have to read it.
32:16 Speaker 04 Thank you.
32:18 Speaker 05 Just like the booger taste thing last week.
32:23 Speaker 05 Over the centuries, physicians became more interested in earwax in the context of ear health and hearing overall. It was recognized by the late 1700s that earwax held several important functions, including preventing dirt and insects from injuring the eardrum. They seemed particularly preoccupied by insects. Quote, "The yellow humor purged by the ears defendeth them against fleas, little flies, and other small worms and beasts that might otherwise enter within them," end quote.
32:54 Speaker 04 So it's not just me who has a like fear of creepy crawlies in my ears?
32:59 Speaker 05 No, I think that's a reasonable thing to fear.
33:02 Speaker 04 Thank you.
33:03 Speaker 05 Yeah. Sorry, sorry if I imply that it wasn't. I also fear the year.
33:12 Speaker 04 I appreciate that.
33:14 Speaker 05 And so you described how earwax, you're producing it continuously. It's just going out of your ears continuously. And this continuous production was shown by a professor who carried out a very simple experiment, I think this was in the 1700s, just by wiping his ears with a piece of black velvet 100 times an hour. And no matter how many times he wiped, there was always a little bit of wax on the cloth.
33:44 Speaker 05 I just loved that imagery.
33:45 Speaker 04 That's amazing.
33:46 Speaker 05 Physicians also noted several cases where someone's hearing improved or worsened, depending on earwax compaction or removal. And so in this way, earwax kind of helped to turn hearing into a more fluid, dynamic state, where it could be permanent or temporary, it could change over the course of your life, and it could be partial or complete. Earwax-related deafness was apparently not uncommon, or other issues related to earwax compaction. So the 17th century scientist, Robert Hooke, described his months-long experience with tinnitus or tinnitus and impaired hearing that was ultimately found to be caused in part by a hard, compacted stone of earwax, which is not a rare occurrence.
34:29 Speaker 05 All sorts of remedies were employed in attempts to remove earwax, like applying heat, plugging the ear with perfumed wool or cotton to try to stimulate the flow, liquid injections with various ingredients. Hook used warmed honey that he wriggled in his ear.
34:45 Speaker 04 Hmm, okay.
34:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, I feel like that would attract bugs.
34:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, honey?
34:50 Speaker 05 Yeah.
34:51 Speaker 04 Sounds real sticky.
34:52 Speaker 05 It sounds sticky.
34:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:54 Speaker 05 The logic, but he used it warmed and that, that lot, no, I'm not saying that that's any better. I'm just saying that that, that logic of, of warming something, that heat to help remove earwax, that held support in the lab, actually, is where it was, was found to be supported. In the late 1700s, a chemist who had become interested in the topic, he had a friend with prodigious earwax production. I think it was the same guy who did the black velvet earwax experiment.
35:21 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
35:21 Speaker 05 And he supplied the chemist with heaps of earwax and he discovered that it hardened over time. It melted with heat and it dissolved in water.
35:30 Speaker 04 Makes sense.
35:31 Speaker 05 So, yeah.
35:32 Speaker 04 Do you know what's also interesting about warm things in your ear versus cold? This is like a separate topic entirely, but if you, if you put cold water in your ear, like if you used cold water to try and zhuzh out your earwax instead of warm water, it would make you super dizzy. It would give you really, really wild vertigo because it does a weird thing that messes with your inner ear.
35:55 Speaker 05 What?
35:55 Speaker 04 If it's cold water versus warm water.
35:56 Speaker 05 Why?
35:57 Speaker 04 I don't, it's a different episode.
36:01 Speaker 05 Next week.
36:02 Speaker 04 Next, not next week.
36:03 Speaker 05 Not next week. Next week we're doing cholesterol?
36:07 Speaker 04 Cholesterol.
36:08 Speaker 05 Spoilers.
36:08 Speaker 04 Oh.
36:11 Speaker 05 But when all else fails, any of your honey, whatever situations fail.
36:16 Speaker 04 Remedies, uh huh.
36:17 Speaker 05 There's always physical removal.
36:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:19 Speaker 05 Ear spoons or ear scoops were popular devices. And what was appealing about these tools was that you could just own one yourself and you didn't have to seek out a doctor. If you're like, hey, I, you know, can you clean my ear out? No, you didn't have to do that. Ear scoops have been around for millennia, as evidenced by historical writings and archaeological finds. But similar to the way, there are just so many parallels between earwax and boogers. So in with boogers, you know, I talked about handkerchiefs and they became status symbols and they transcended their role as just a snot rag. A market of decorative grooming tools grew and there are examples of these really intricately and ornately carved ear picks and ear scoops.
37:05 Speaker 04 Really?
37:06 Speaker 05 Yeah.
37:06 Speaker 04 Beautiful ear scoops.
37:07 Speaker 05 Beautiful ear scoops. There's one, there's a paper, you can see an image of this. There was one that was found at Jamestown, the English colony established in what is now Virginia in 1607. And in like the first iteration of that town, they found in archaeological digs, a combination toothpick and ear scoop. It's shaped like a dolphin. And so the toothpick part comes out of its little mouth and then there's an ear scoop coming out of its tail.
37:32 Speaker 04 What?
37:34 Speaker 05 And then it has a little loop on its back and so you could wear it as a necklace.
37:38 Speaker 04 What?
37:39 Speaker 05 And carry it around with you. A little ear scoop. Who knew?
37:43 Speaker 04 Who knew? I definitely did not know that.
37:46 Speaker 05 I did not. And also I was like dolphin, why, why a dolphin?
37:50 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:50 Speaker 05 And apparently sea creatures were featured heavily in jewelry and decorative items at the time because maritime supremacy was blossoming in England.
37:59 Speaker 04 Oh, that's so interesting.
38:00 Speaker 05 And I just was like, that's very, that's very interesting. Cause there was another ear scoop found somewhere in England that was similar and they were like, we think it's a dolphin, it might be a fish, it's some sort of marine
38:11 Speaker 04 Marine creature.
38:13 Speaker 05 Yeah.
38:13 Speaker 04 Wow.
38:15 Speaker 05 But these ear scoop tools also signify that earwax was not solely relegated to the realm of medicine. Everyone was individually concerned with it. It was just a routine part of life to clean out your ears. And those who could afford to do so often had their ears cleaned out by a barber who used special tools to scoop out any crud. There's, and this is referenced in plays. So there's a play, I believe from the 1700s where a soldier worries that the king has had his ears picked too much and so he has no protection from flies, from earwigs and from flattery.
38:50 Speaker 05 So he's like, anyone has the ear of the king with his ears cleaned of earwax.
38:54 Speaker 04 Oh, my God, that's so funny.
38:56 Speaker 05 Hilarious. And there are occasionally hints at the recognition that earwax holds some value, like the situation that I just described, where it's like, well, no, we need some earwax there. Mostly, it was considered a waste product, or junk, as you put it.
39:12 Speaker 04 Junk. So sorry for calling it that.
39:16 Speaker 05 I accept. I accept your apology. And so, for instance, in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Agamemnon is described as not having, quote, "so much brain as earwax." Devastating.
39:31 Speaker 04 That is devastating.
39:33 Speaker 05 Yeah, put that in your back pocket.
39:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, right?
39:37 Speaker 05 In reality, however, earwax held far more uses than I would have guessed. So, for instance, in The American Frugal Housewife, which was written by Lydia Child in 1832, holds earwax in quite high regard.
39:52 Speaker 04 What?
39:53 Speaker 05 Quote, "Nothing is better than earwax to prevent the painful effects resulting from a wound by a nail, skewer, et cetera. It should be put on as soon as possible. Those who are troubled with cracked lips have found this remedy successful when others have failed. It is one of those sorts of cures which are very likely to be laughed at, but I know of its having produced very beneficial results."
40:19 Speaker 04 So she's using it as Vaseline?
40:21 Speaker 05 Using it as chapstick, yeah.
40:24 Speaker 04 Taking out the earwax, put it on your cuts. Literally, I have like an Aquaphor stick that I do that with. Not earwax. Okay.
40:33 Speaker 05 Yep.
40:33 Speaker 04 Uh huh. Yeah, earwax on your lips. I don't know if I'm gonna try that.
40:38 Speaker 05 I don't. I mean, you can. You are certainly entitled to.
40:41 Speaker 04 Got enough earwax, that's for sure.
40:43 Speaker 05 I feel like I'm a super producer as well.
40:45 Speaker 04 Me too. I've always felt that way.
40:47 Speaker 05 Same.
40:48 Speaker 04 What are you gonna do about it?
40:49 Speaker 05 It's just, it's life.
40:50 Speaker 04 It's life.
40:51 Speaker 05 It's life.
40:52 Speaker 04 You know, we probably make a very typical amount of earwax there.
40:55 Speaker 05 We probably do. We probably do.
40:58 Speaker 04 You're probably not special in any way.
41:00 Speaker 05 No.
41:01 Speaker 04 When it comes to our earwax.
41:02 Speaker 05 No. We'll see. I mean, maybe, maybe somebody will do a paper and we'll, we'll revisit this topic and discover our, our specialness. Okay, so I didn't see it mentioned in The American Frugal Housewife, but the author may have also been familiar with the common practice of using earwax while stitching and sewing. It's really great at keeping the ends of cut thread from unraveling.
41:26 Speaker 04 I could see that, actually.
41:27 Speaker 05 Yeah. And so, in fact, there are some bodkins, which are these like large blunted needles with a big eye to hold ribbon, kind of like a tapestry needle you'd use to sew, to weave in ends.
41:39 Speaker 04 Right, right.
41:39 Speaker 05 But like bigger.
41:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
41:40 Speaker 05 Some of these have ear scoops on the end of them.
41:43 Speaker 04 So that you can scoop and then use it for your... That is so interesting.
41:48 Speaker 05 Right?
41:48 Speaker 04 Oh, wow.
41:49 Speaker 05 Earwax was also favored by many artists who used it to help bind pigment to the paper or other surfaces they were working on. So I asked you to find a paper for me because I couldn't find it. And, um, and this is what, this is what was inside that paper.
42:05 Speaker 04 Okay, I didn't read it.
42:06 Speaker 05 Okay, okay, good. Spoilers, yeah. So, you know illuminated manuscripts? Those beautiful books with intricate colorful decorations or illustrations around the side? And they were like all hand drawn and everything. The Book of Kells is a famous one, if you want to look up like a really exceptionally beautiful example. But apparently, many illustrators of these manuscripts were regular users of earwax to prevent bubbles from forming in their metallic paint mixtures.
42:34 Speaker 04 What?
42:34 Speaker 05 And so the author of a paper that I read about this actually tried it out himself. He made a couple of bronze pigment, egg white mixtures.
42:45 Speaker 04 Okay.
42:45 Speaker 05 One that had earwax added to it and one without. You mix them together. Of course, egg white's going to create bubbles. And it's, and he was like, yeah, there were fewer bubbles in the earwax one. And then he used it to like paint, I think UCSF. It was the example. He must have been, that must have been where he was.
43:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
43:04 Speaker 05 But one that, so he compared the one that had earwax and the one that didn't. And you can kind of see that the one with earwax is smoother and the color seems more consistent. So, any artists who are out there listening, who have been struggling blending ear, or egg whites into paints, try a dab of earwax. Let us know. Let us know how it goes.
43:25 Speaker 04 They probably use like, artificial things now that are just, that have waxes in them or whatever.
43:30 Speaker 05 Yeah, you might not need earwax.
43:32 Speaker 04 It's my guess.
43:33 Speaker 05 For that purpose.
43:33 Speaker 04 Did that guy use his own earwax or someone else's?
43:36 Speaker 05 I believe he used his own.
43:37 Speaker 04 Interesting. I wonder if it depend, like, is it gotta be wet earwax? Or is dry earwax okay?
43:43 Speaker 05 Right.
43:43 Speaker 04 Which?
43:43 Speaker 05 I mean, so, that's a great question. I think he, I think, I mean, he said he had wet earwax.
43:51 Speaker 04 Okay.
43:52 Speaker 05 But I don't know if he experimented. That could be another paper.
43:55 Speaker 04 That'll be another paper.
43:56 Speaker 05 Another paper. Someone's, someone got a master's thesis at the very least on this.
44:00 Speaker 04 Right.
44:03 Speaker 05 But yeah, earwax. It's a more powerful resource than I expected. Rich, rich not just in the application of the stuff itself, but also what it can tell us about ourselves.
44:14 Speaker 04 Tell me.
44:15 Speaker 05 So Erin, you mentioned that there are basically two types of earwax in humans, dry and wet. And there might be some that fall in between, but for the most part, the distinction seems to be pretty clear.
44:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
44:25 Speaker 05 Like, pretty night and day. And it's strongly associated with ancestry, like you mentioned. So people with East Asian ancestry tend to have dry earwax. Those of European and African ancestry have wet earwax. And those who have Southern Asian, Pacific Island, Central Asian, Native North American and Inuit have intermediate proportions of wet and dry.
44:46 Speaker 04 Okay, interesting.
44:47 Speaker 05 Yeah. And this observation first started to garner attention around the mid 20th century. And researchers made note of a couple of things. It was also associated with armpit odor. So those who have wet earwax have much more odoriferous pits.
45:04 Speaker 04 We have stinkier armpits.
45:05 Speaker 05 We have stinky pits.
45:06 Speaker 04 Agreed.
45:07 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm. And it seemed to follow a pretty straightforward pattern of inheritance. And just how straightforward was determined in 2006. And this is when researchers published their results that the difference between dry and wet earwax was down to one letter change in one gene of our DNA.
45:27 Speaker 05 One single nucleotide polymorphism.
45:30 Speaker 04 That's so weird.
45:31 Speaker 05 Yes, just one nucleotide changes earwax composition and has strong associations with armpit odor.
45:42 Speaker 04 And the drier earwax is, well, and that makes sense because it's all apricin gland secretions, right? Which is like what your armpit odor is why that is there and your earwax.
45:52 Speaker 05 Your earwax. And it follows this dominant recessive Mendelian inheritance, which is the thing that you learn about in school.
45:58 Speaker 04 Right, that's like your basic genetics.
46:01 Speaker 05 Basic genetics. But if you, so if you have two copies of the G version, which is the, the wet earwax version, or one G and one A, wet earwax. But if you have two copies of the A version, that's the, the nucleotide substitution.
46:14 Speaker 04 Okay.
46:15 Speaker 05 Then you have dry earwax.
46:17 Speaker 04 And you're less stinky.
46:18 Speaker 05 And you're less stinky. And so for context, I feel like eye color is often taught as a simple Mendelian trait. It involves at least 16 genes, if not more.
46:27 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:27 Speaker 05 Yeah. But this is very interesting. And I didn't go down this rabbit hole. But in addition to being associated with earwax type and armpit odor, the same letter swap might be associated with the amount of colostrum produced. With people with dry earwax producing less colostrum.
46:45 Speaker 04 Fascinating.
46:46 Speaker 05 Yeah.
46:47 Speaker 04 Also apricin glands.
46:49 Speaker 05 Exactly. So like what?
46:50 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:50 Speaker 05 Yeah.
46:51 Speaker 04 How interesting.
46:53 Speaker 05 So does earwax type matter? Or was it just like a random mutation that spread? And it seems like it might actually matter, although it's unclear why. So some researchers suggest that it could be because of the cold. As humans migrated out of Africa and spread across Eurasia, cold temperatures would have had, would have been a strong selection pressure.
47:14 Speaker 04 Okay.
47:15 Speaker 05 And so the, the dry earwax phenotype emerged around 45,000 years ago in North and East, or North or East Asia, where it was colder. And it's thought that maybe the reduced sweating could have been an advantage, or the reduced stinking could have, I, I don't.
47:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
47:31 Speaker 05 I don't know. But in, in any case, like, what, what these researchers have proposed is that because it's so widespread, it seems like there is some positive selection.
47:41 Speaker 04 Right.
47:41 Speaker 05 Seems like it was like, this is selected for, not just like, it happened to spread in a population.
47:45 Speaker 04 Right, not just random, because it's too, too prevalent for that.
47:48 Speaker 05 Yeah.
47:49 Speaker 04 Right.
47:49 Speaker 05 That's, that's the idea.
47:51 Speaker 04 How interesting.
47:52 Speaker 05 Okay, so, earwax can tell us about human migration, it can be used as a lip balm, it's great if you're illustrating a medieval illuminated manuscript, and it can be analyzed to tell us about the individual that produced it. So there's some interest, and I don't know how much interest, in, in the forensic applications of earwax analysis, things like tobacco exposure, cortisol levels, et cetera, stuff like that.
48:21 Speaker 04 In your earwax.
48:23 Speaker 05 In your earwax. And so there's, there's more, I mean, because your earwax is also like.
48:29 Speaker 04 It's being exposed, just like your nose is, right, to the outside world. Yes, you're getting other junk stuck in your, that's why I say junk, Erin.
48:38 Speaker 04 Defending myself. Debris.
48:41 Speaker 05 You didn't know about chapstick and earwax, right?
48:44 Speaker 04 I had no idea.
48:45 Speaker 05 Now that you know, you won't make that same mistake.
48:48 Speaker 04 Won't I?
48:50 Speaker 05 But that's just the uses of human earwax.
48:54 Speaker 04 Oh, no.
48:55 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because humans are not the only producers of this glorious stuff. The ceruminous glands, the glands that produce earwax, are widespread among mammals, dogs, raccoons, pigs, goats, foxes, cats, whales.
49:11 Speaker 04 Whales!
49:12 Speaker 05 Whales. We come now.
49:14 Speaker 04 Do whales even have ears?
49:16 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah. Okay, there are some fascinating papers on whale cetacean hearing.
49:23 Speaker 04 Okay.
49:24 Speaker 05 Um, that I really enjoyed.
49:26 Speaker 04 Okay.
49:27 Speaker 05 Yeah, okay whales. So this is now, we've arrived at the last and my personal favorite chapter in the earwax story.
49:35 Speaker 04 Me too.
49:37 Speaker 05 All cetaceans, whales, dolphins, porpoises evolved from a land-dwelling carnivorous cat-like creature that began its aquatic journey around 50 million years ago.
49:47 Speaker 04 Okay.
49:47 Speaker 05 Going from land to water is a heck of a transition. And so many different aspects of anatomy and physiology had to change to allow for that to happen, like hearing, which in land dwellers is done using air-adapted ears. When whales evolved, those ears and their hearing more generally adapted to an aquatic environment, but the canals and the wax that they produced did not simply disappear. Instead, baleen whales keep producing earwax that accumulates over their entire life, rather than getting continuously expelled like ours.
50:26 Speaker 04 What?
50:27 Speaker 05 Yeah.
50:28 Speaker 04 What does that do?
50:29 Speaker 05 Okay. Over time, these waxy layers form an earplug that is centimeters long, like 25 centimeters in one adult male blue whale.
50:42 Speaker 05 A long whale earplug. You can look up pictures of these.
50:45 Speaker 04 I will.
50:46 Speaker 05 Yes. Okay, but that's not even the coolest part. Like, it just keeps getting cooler.
50:50 Speaker 04 It just, okay.
50:51 Speaker 05 What is amazing about these layers is that they're distinct. About two formed every year, so they're predictable in their deposition.
50:59 Speaker 04 Stop it.
50:59 Speaker 05 And their color corresponds to times of like feeding or migration. People have used these earplugs to estimate the age of whales, like tree rings.
51:11 Speaker 04 Tree rings.
51:11 Speaker 05 And that's, they've used this for a while, but what they're doing now is even cooler than that. Researchers are using these earplugs to detect layer-specific levels of hormones, contaminants, and other compounds, and so you end up getting a more detailed picture of what a whale's entire life was like.
51:33 Speaker 04 What?
51:34 Speaker 05 Is this where you thought this would go?
51:37 Speaker 04 No.
51:38 Speaker 05 I know, I know. I was so excited when I was reading these papers. So for instance, there was a blue, a male blue whale that was killed in a boat collision and was found to be around 12 years old, based on these, the earplug. His testosterone spiked enormously a couple of years prior, which is when he reached sexual maturity.
52:00 Speaker 04 Oh, my gosh.
52:01 Speaker 05 And his cortisol increased over his lifetime. And most of the contaminants that he was exposed to occurred in the first six months of his life, which suggested transfer through gestation and lactation, which is really depressing.
52:16 Speaker 04 Wow.
52:17 Speaker 05 Yeah.
52:18 Speaker 04 Okay.
52:19 Speaker 05 And that's just one whale.
52:21 Speaker 04 One whale, one earplug.
52:22 Speaker 05 One earplug. And as it turns out, people have been collecting and preserving whale earplugs for decades.
52:29 Speaker 04 That shouldn't surprise me.
52:31 Speaker 05 I know. Shout out to Natural History Museums, to collections. Like, we can learn so much, it's been unbelievable. And so that same research group who did this study on this single male blue whale, looked at cortisol levels in 20 preserved whale earplugs collected from 1870 to 2016.
52:49 Speaker 04 Wow.
52:51 Speaker 05 And they found that cortisol was, which is associated with stress.
52:55 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm. It's one of our stress hormones.
52:57 Speaker 05 One of our stress hormones.
52:58 Speaker 04 Yeah. It's also essential for life functioning.
53:00 Speaker 05 It is essential for life.
53:01 Speaker 04 Cortisol to be alive.
53:02 Speaker 05 Right, right.
53:03 Speaker 04 Yep.
53:04 Speaker 05 And what they found was that cortisol was pretty closely tied to whaling counts. As in, years where more whales were hunted, were more stressful for whales. So the higher the whaling count, the higher number of whales killed, the higher the cortisol level.
53:19 Speaker 04 Wow.
53:20 Speaker 05 And the whale, and the whale earplugs they collected. The exception is World War II, when whaling counts were low, but stress was high, no doubt due to the war also being, yeah, explosions and submarines and all that.
53:31 Speaker 04 Right.
53:32 Speaker 05 And this relationship was especially pronounced in the years following 1972, when the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed. Just a big drop in cortisol levels.
53:43 Speaker 04 Oh, wow.
53:45 Speaker 05 And that drop remained fairly low until you get to the past few decades, where cortisol increases again in certain years. Why? Abnormally warm sea surface temperatures in those years.
53:59 Speaker 04 Knew it was gonna be global warming, yeah.
54:02 Speaker 05 Yep. And you, the, the relationship between this is just like, it is, it's very grim, right? Like this research is so grim, but it is vital.
54:14 Speaker 04 Yeah.
54:14 Speaker 05 These earplugs are able to show us something that has been kind of hard to measure in certain populations or in certain situations, especially, I mean, cetaceans are incredibly difficult.
54:25 Speaker 04 So hard to study.
54:26 Speaker 05 Long-term.
54:27 Speaker 04 Yeah.
54:27 Speaker 05 As well. And so these earplugs being able to show us the, the non-lethal human impact on organisms is incredibly important.
54:40 Speaker 04 Right.
54:40 Speaker 05 And tells us so much.
54:42 Speaker 04 Yes.
54:42 Speaker 05 Yeah.
54:42 Speaker 04 Like, oh, wow.
54:44 Speaker 05 Yeah. So, uh, will we do anything with that information? That remains to be seen. But, uh, but that is all that I have on earwax.
54:55 Speaker 04 Wow, Erin. I have not thought about whale ears.
55:02 Speaker 05 Okay, there are some papers and there is a researcher, I watched a video of hers on, I think it was like an old PBS video or something like that. And she was so engaging and wonderful. And I just, I really liked her. There was a, one of the papers I will shout out at the end, as soon as I find the name of it, but.
55:20 Speaker 04 I love it. Their ears are just like flat, just like holes, right?
55:24 Speaker 05 They're, they're small, but then they use a lot of like jaw fat or something like that, that absorbs. And I didn't, I, yeah, I, I should have spent more time learning about ear or whale hearing overall, but.
55:34 Speaker 04 That's okay. This wasn't an episode about hearing. I didn't talk about hearing at all.
55:38 Speaker 05 Yeah.
55:38 Speaker 04 How interesting though.
55:40 Speaker 05 Yeah.
55:41 Speaker 04 Wow. I want to know so much more. People can learn more. Where, tell where?
55:47 Speaker 05 Can learn more. I have a bunch of sources all over the place, but I'm going to shout out a few here. If you want to learn more about hearing in whales overall, there's Darlene Ketten is the researcher that I was thinking of. And there's a paper from 1997 that I liked called "Structure and Function in Whale Ears." And then if you want to check out that paper on the whale cortisol levels over time, there's a paper by Trumbull et al. from 2018 called Baleen Whale Cortisol Levels Reveal a Physiological Response to 20th Century Whaling. And then a couple more. So there's that paper about wet versus dry earwax and how it's just one snip. And that's by
56:31 Speaker 05 Ohashi et al. from 2011. And then Ear Wax and Art History by Petracchis from 2000 called Earmarks of Art History: Cerumen and Medieval Art. And a lot more.
56:45 Speaker 04 I also have a number of papers, but the two that were cited in every other paper ever that I read were one from 1997 by Roser and Balachanda. That was called Physiology, Pathophysiology and Anthropology/Epidemiology of Human Ear Canal Secretions, from the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology. And then one from 1964 by Alberti called Epithelial Migration on the Tympanic Membrane. It was actually really interesting. I don't read a lot of papers from the 60s, but I always get a kick out of it when I get to.
57:22 Speaker 05 I love reading papers from the 60s sometimes.
57:25 Speaker 04 It's, yeah, it's just, they're so different in vibe.
57:28 Speaker 05 So different. They're so different. Yeah.
57:30 Speaker 04 And then I have a bunch of papers on like impacted cerumen and cerumen impaction and how we deal with it. And then a few as well on the ear candling business. You can find all of these sources on our website, thispodcastwillkillyou.com, under the Episodes tab.
57:48 Speaker 05 You certainly can. A big thank you to Blood Mobile for providing the music for this episode and all of our episodes.
57:54 Speaker 04 Thank you. Thank you to Leanna and Tom and Mark and Pete and Jessica and everyone. Christina, there's like so many people to thank at Exactly Right Network. Thank you all for making this possible.
58:07 Speaker 05 Yes. Thank you also to anyone who, you know, watches this podcast, listens to this podcast. We appreciate it. Like, like we said, you have a lot of different ways you can Spend your time and we really appreciate you spending that time with us. It means everything.
58:22 Speaker 04 It really truly does. So thank you. And a special thank you to our patrons for your support over on Patreon. It really does mean like we we're not good, I think, at using words to explain how much it means to us. But it really means a lot.
58:34 Speaker 05 It does. It does. Until next time, wash your hands.
58:38 Speaker 04 You filthy animals.
59:07 Speaker 06 Building with AI should feel simpler, not harder to navigate. The challenge is finding the right resources to move from exploring AI to building with it. The Microsoft AI Innovators Hub brings together code samples, guided labs, and practical guidance to help you move from exploring AI to building with it. Learn by building at the AI Innovators Hub. Visit aka.ms/ai-innovators. That's aka.ms/ai-innovators.
59:37 Speaker 01 Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability. Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.
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