Why don't ears have bones?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are your ears burning? ‘Cause we’ve been thinking about them. Sure, they’re an incredible self-cleaning marvel that we can wax poetic about all day. Sure, they’re a great place for dads to store all kinds of hairs. But do ears have bones? We asked Olivia Bermingham-McDonogh from the University of Washington to help us find the answer.

Heard a good question recently? Send it to us atBrainsOn.org/contact, because we’re ear for you.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um.
0:08.1	Moment of um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Anna Goldfield.
0:13.1	Um.
0:15.0	Today I am having a friendly dispute with my pal, Anna Wagle.
0:19.7	I'm telling you, those are the lyrics. I have a memory
0:21.8	like a steel trap. Buddy, I don't think it goes. The neck bones connect to the head bones. The
0:28.0	head bones connect to the ear bones. I mean, yeah, sure, you've got ear bones, but they're not
0:34.9	connected to your skull. Hang on a dang second.
0:38.3	I have ear bones?
0:40.8	Bony ears?
0:42.1	I thought that part of the song was a joke.
0:44.4	Not bony ears, exactly.
0:47.4	It's more like, well, just listen to this.
0:50.2	My name is why from Delanaga, Georgia.
0:52.4	My question is, why don't ears have bones? My name is Y from Delanooga, Georgia. And my question is, why don't ears have bones?
0:56.1	My name is Olivia Birmingham, McDonough.
0:59.3	My pronouns are she and her.
1:02.7	And my job title is professor at the University of Washington.
1:06.9	So the question was, why don't the ears have bones?
1:11.0	And the ears actually do have bones.
1:14.0	But what we think of and what we look at is a thing called our outer ear.
1:18.5	And you can divide our whole ear into three parts.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.