Human Ears Make Noise

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Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 1, 2002 @12:31AM from the buzz-more-when-nibbled dept.

KeelSpawn points to this article at Discover, which begins: "Until recently, scientists thought human ears were passive devices that detected and processed sounds, but new findings suggest that ears are like perpetually turned on stereo receivers that quiver spontaneously and sing along with incoming sounds."

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Olds, not news by Red_Winestain · 2002-05-01 01:36 · Score: 5, Informative

This is not new, it is old. The sounds produced by the ear are known as otoacoustic emissions. It is hard to tell from the lightweight Discover article what the new contribution from the researchers is, but the basic phenomenon is quite old and quite well understood.
The best summary information on the web is the otoacoustic emissions web site. It has two lengthy reference sections, information on the use of otocacoustic emissions to test the hearing of new borns and infants, and lots more.
Other information on this is easily obtainable by browsing back issues of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
Re: White noise by knabar · 2002-05-01 02:19 · Score: 3, Informative

Another noise that is hard to locate are sirens of emergency vehicles. This is why some countries (Britain, I believe) now use emergency vehicles that emit white noise and a regular siren sound, so other people on the road can more easily tell where the vehicle is coming from.
Ideas old, confirmation recent by rsidd · 2002-05-01 07:03 · Score: 3, Informative

The idea that the ear is a self-tuned oscillator with positive feedback was proposed as far back as 1948, in a paper by Gold (Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, volume B 136, page 492). It wasn't taken seriously back then and there was no evidence, but the evidence -- and more theoretical support and models -- came starting around 1998, in work by Hudspeth (Rockefeller Univ, NY) and others. Since then there have been plenty of papers; it's more than a "few months" old...