Tonight The Australian Innovation Awards. Peter Blamey is a finalist, which is terrific recognition of his work in helping thousands hear better with our self fit hearing aids that people buy on line, and save a lot of money. One of the other finalists is on this path, but two years from market.
But my big news item today is The Age Odd spot, yesterday, describing the plight of ear cleaners in India. Keeping ears clean is a vexing topic. Apparently in Delhi, people are taking to cotton buds instead. Here, in Australia, I advise people not to use cotton buds – but to go to ear cleaners. Although here, they are normally registered nurses or GPs. When I give talks, I often put aside 10 minutes to discuss this topic, and everyone shares their favourite (non-cotton bud) hint. I usually tell people to put a few drops of body temperature olive oil in a few times a week, and let nature do the rest. This works a lot of the time.
There are some good products in the chemist too. I personally use the Ear Clear system – is this a very personal thing to be putting on the web? I’m not sure. Anyway, as CEO of a hearing aid company, perhaps the state of the wax in my ears should be on my public profile – or perhaps not.
Earwax and Innovation
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I was in the library today looking for books about hearing, and one (a general science book) was saying ear wax comes in different colours, and varies according to racial background.
I wonder how many scientific studies have been done on the subject. Imagine going to a party and saying ‘I did my PhD on Ear Wax’. Amusing maybe, but the book also said it contains…sorry, forgotten the substance…something with anti-bacterial properties, so somebody must have done it. Could be an Ig Nobel contender, or something profound. We never know until we look.
I am not sure how much of a party topic Ear Wax should be. When I give talks, I get lots of information and questions on this – sometimes, more than I expect. I think I could write a paper already on this. The colour certainly varies, though this is sometimes a factor of the age of the ear wax. Now this could start to get pretty sensitive. How old is your ear wax?….. Hmm. The more surprising question I got recently moved on to Earwigs. Now, thereby hangs a tale. We live and learn.