Elephants are big, and they get hot. Especially in Africa. Thus, from the elephant’s point of view, there’s sometimes an urgent necessity to dissipate excess heat. Some investigators have suggested that flapping their large ears (strictly, their ‘pinnae’) could provide a significant heat-loss mechanism. (e.g. Buss, I. O., and Estes, J. A., 1971, ‘The Functional […]
Tag: ear
The destructive effect of spectacle handles
This illustration demonstrates “the destructive effect of spectacle handles” for computer programs designed to automatically detect and measure the shape of a person’s ear. From one point of view, this shows that you are acting unfairly if you wear eyeglasses to an airport or bank or any other place where you are likely to be […]
Accounting for accommodation in a one-legged two-eared eared grebe
The title of this study says “grebes” [plural], but the story involves a single grebe [singular]. That single grebe does, as the title implies, have a single [one] leg: “Ecological Constraints and Phenotypic Accommodation in One-legged Eared Grebes,” Joseph R. Jehl Jr., The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, 125(4), 2013, pp. 829-832. (Thanks to investigator Adrian […]
How to remove an eraser from an ear
In this video, Professor Larry B. Mellick, MD, of Georgia Regents University, explains and demonstrates how to remove an eraser from a person’s ear: Professor Mellick’s biography remarks of him: “His current academic ranks include being Professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics. His medical training was accomplished in the United States Army where he attained […]