Deaf/Hard of Hearing ping list
with interests in health and society
Posted on 05/12/2006 12:27:35 PM PDT by aimhigh
The next time someone whispers in your ear, think "cochlea." The cochlea is the marvelous structure in the inner ear that is shaped like a snail shell and transforms sounds into the nerve impulses that your brain can process and interpret.
This critical hearing organ consists of a fluid-filled tube about a cubic centimeter (three hundredths of an ounce) in volume. For decades, hearing experts thought that its spiral shape was simply an efficient packing job and its shape had no effect on how it functions. But a recent study headed by Vanderbilt mathematician Daphne Manoussaki calls this conventional wisdom into question. She and her colleagues, Richard Chadwick and Emilios Dimitriadis of the National Institutes of Health, have created a mathematical model of the cochlea that finds the spiral shape acts to enhance the low frequency sounds that we use to communicate with one another. They published the results recently in the journal Physical Review Letters.
If the new model is correct, then the cochlea is more sophisticated than researchers have thought. "This would indicate we need to take a step back from the cell biology and see how the cochlea works as an integrated system," says Karl Grosh, who studies the ear's structure at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "The more we understand how the cochlea works, the more success we will have in building signal processing systems that mimic its auditory characteristics.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Nahhhh, couldn't be. Just more evidence of chance.
....and how long did it take Dr. Bose to design his speakers?
Yes, I said the "D-word" - DESIGN !!!
BOOO!!!
(</sarc> to all Darwinists)
Say ... what?
ping!
Deaf/Hard of Hearing ping list
with interests in health and society
thanks millee
This relates to something I was curious about: although the term "impedance" is usually used to refer to electrical signals, the concept also seems applicable in accoustics, hydraulics, mechanics, and many other fields. Is there any unifying theory behind them?
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/palmer051206.html
I don't know the whole ping list and youre in charge of it, anyway, and I found this interesting article on deaf kids in Baghdad.
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