How *Not* to Remove Water From Your Ears

    As someone who spent most of their childhood summers in pools and lakes, I know what it is like to suffer from Swimmer's ear. Swimmer's ear is a type of ear infection caused by an excess amount of water left in the ear canal. The water provides a moist environment for bacteria to grow, and if left unchecked, pain is sure to ensue. I tried everything to prevent this irksome feeling: lying on my side until the water drained out, plugging my nose and trying to breathe out, and even swinging my head left and right to dislodge the water. Sometimes these tricks worked, but most of the time they did not. And if they didn't work, I usually tried again. I never questioned what other effects these supposed remedies could have been having on my body. Now, new biophysical research makes me think that I should have.

   Research conducted by Anuj Baskota at Cornell University is shedding some light on the physics of water removal from the inner ear canal. Anuj is a senior who is studying biological engineering with a minor in biomedical engineering. He presented this work at the 72nd annual meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics in 2019. Specifically, his work surrounded the jerking motion that some people perform to force water out of their ears. By conducting a simple set that only used glass tubes of varying diameters (ear canal) and a spring (jerking motion), Anuj was able to mimic the movement of some unfortunate swimmers. After doing some easy calculations, he found that the acceleration needed to overcome the surface tension of water within the ear canal is around 10 g's. An acceleration like this is enough to cause major brain damage. Even worse, as the diameter of the "ear canal" decreased, a larger acceleration was needed. This has major implications when you think about children with smaller ear canals trying to remove water from their ears. It also makes you rethink the next strategy you use to get that pesky water out of your ear.

    The new research performed by Anuj Baskota at Cornell University not only discovered something new and pertinent to the biomedical field, but it also highlighted the fact that seemingly simple experimental designs and a creative mind are enough to make it happen.

Reference: "Acceleration-induced water ejection in the human ear canal" by Anuj Baskota, Seungho Kim, Hosung Kang, and Sunghwan Jung.