Many activities make the ears pop. If you ride to the top of a skyscraper or down a deep mine shaft, you will need to swallow several times to correct a bulging sensation within the eardrums. Similarly, when you fly, particularly in an unpressurised cabin, or ski fast downhill, you may suffer that same discomforts inside you ears. All these activities have something in common. Whenever you travel... 

Earache Sufferer Pain in the ear is one of the most frequent and stressing childhood ailments, as many sleepless parents know. Infection of the middle ear – acute otitis media – is its most common cause in adults and children. A sever, stabbing pain, high temperature and some hearing loss may precede a rupture of the eardrum and the release of fluid. Sometimes, infection strikes the... 

Tightrope-walker Blondin crosses Niagara in 1859. Later he did it blindfolded. Our ears play an important  part in helping us to stay upright without toppling over, but they aren’t our only control mechanism. Balance is a complex process, demanding a constant flow  of signals to and from the brain. If, for example, we trip and fall sideways, an immediate reaction is to shoot out an arm on... 

Total deafness is fortunately very rare, and the luckless sufferers are usually among the one in 1,000 who are born that way. Partial deafness creeps up on most of us as we get older. Those who become hard of hearing earlier in their lives are usually the victims of disease, such as middle-ear infection, or accident. whatever its cause, hearing loss has two forms: conductive deafness and nerve deafness.... 

ringing in the ears From time to time, we all get strange noises in one or both of our ears. We hear a ringing, buzzing, whistling, rumbling or hissing, but it’s created inside the head not in the world outside. Usually, the noise disappears are rapidly as it arrived. Doctors trace these brief episodes to many sources: a build-up of earwax, drugs such as aspirin and quinine, sudden loud noise.... 

ear Many of us tend to think of the ear as being merely the outside flap, the visible part that is a combination of skin and cartilage. The ear is one of the body’s most complex organs – and the earflap is its least essential part. In fact, if you lost in through accident, your hearing would be little affected. Compared with the swiveling ear flaps of such animals as hares and cats, our...