How the ear's works work

Article Abstract:

The internal ear works constantly to provide use with the senses of hearing and balance. Evolution has created this efficient, even elegant, structure no larger than a marble, which guides our movement and transmits sounds from the environment. We are usually oblivious to the internal ear's functions because it is so reliable. Our abilities to stand still, move on foot or travel in vehicles at high speeds all depend on the physiology of the internal ear. This organ also provides hearing by translating frequency waves into sounds we can interpret, and amplifying them. The smaller units of the internal ear are the hair cells, which are capable of responding to the minuscule movements of atoms in the environment. Hair cells react over 100,000 times per second. The hair cells are not all alike, but are specialized to pick up certain frequencies. Hair cells respond to mechanical forces, translating them into electrical energy. The electrical messages are carried by the nervous system to the brain where the intensity, duration and frequency of a stimulus is decoded. Internal ears with hair cells have proven to be a successful evolutionary adaptation since they exist in all vertebrates (animals with a spinal column). The number of hair cells is surprisingly small in relation to cells in other sensory organs such as the eye. Our sense of hearing is quite vulnerable to injury from loud noises. Destruction of only 166,000 hair cells would cause severe deafness and loss of balance, whereas a similar loss of cells in the retina of the eye would have a minimal effect on vision.

Causes of, Physiological aspects, Hearing, Deafness, Human locomotion, Ear, Auditory pathways, Auditory pathway

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Assessment works

Article Abstract:

The physics department of the University of Tokyo requested a committee which included foreign scientists to review and report the quality of the department. The committee concluded that although the quality of faculty and students were unquestionable, the physical facilities were sorely wanting. In addition, the committee cited the lack of female or foreign scientists among the tenured staff. Students and even postdoctoral fellows were generally considered as dogsbodies of the professor to whom they were attached. Despite the criticisms, the review was considered a great success.

Evaluation, University of Tokyo, Departmental chairmen (Universities), Department heads

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Green to the Corps: engineer works to build aquatic balance

Article Abstract:

Bob Biel, recently retired from the Army Corps of Engineers, has become a consultant to The Nature Conservancy. Biel worked on the Green River Dam in Kentucky as area director of water management for the Army Corps of Engineers and is now working with the Nature Conservancy on a plan to manage the dam to improve the river's ecological functioning.

Kentucky, Management, Environmental aspects, Personalities, Dams, Nature Conservancy, Stream ecology, Biel, Bob

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