Combination toothpick and earwax scoop

“In this photo released by the Florida Keys News Bureau, a tiny solid gold combination toothpick and earwax scoop is displayed inside a clam shell... A Blue Water Ventures salvage diver recovered the artifact... during a search for remains of the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita that shipwrecked in a 1622 hurricane. According to archaeologists, the 3-inch-long grooming tool is more than 385 years old and was probably worn on a gold chain. Estimated value could exceed $100,000.” (AP Photo/Florida Keys News Bureau, Bob Care)

I love stories about treasure - buried treasure, sunken treasure, lost treasure. But in all my daydreams, never did I imagine finding a "combination toothpick and earwax scoop!" And not only that - it "was probably worn on a gold chain!!"

"Hola! Hernando. You're looking good today - on your way to church? And... WOW... is that ever a nice earwax scoop you're wearing!"

Fighting dental plaque in the 17th century

Last month I blogged an entry about a combination toothpick and earwax spoon. Today Neatorama provides some additional information about the use of the instrument for dental hygiene:

Ear pickers, though not all of silver, were used by all levels of society in medieval and post-medieval England. As was the fashion for many of these tools, this one is double-ended. The pointed end was used to clean teeth and nails, and the spoon-shaped end was used to remove earwax. The 17th-century English knew about plaque, which they called “scale” or “surf,” and they were encouraged by their doctors to scrape their teeth frequently. They also knew that a buildup of earwax could cause deafness. As gross as that may seem to us today, the earwax was often saved and used for coating sewing thread to make it stronger and easier to use.

An interesting story about earwax and the human microbiome

I recently chatted with a cousin who is a physician in Florida.  He told me about a patient in their clinic system who for years had been plagued by chronic otitis externa (inflammation of the ear canal; "swimmer's ear").  

Otitis externa may be acute (lasting less than six weeks) or chronic (lasting more than three months). Acute cases are typically due to bacterial infection, and chronic cases are often due to allergies and autoimmune disorders. The most common cause of Otitis externa is bacterial. Risk factors for acute cases include swimming, minor trauma from cleaning, using hearing aids and ear plugs, and other skin problems, such as psoriasis and dermatitis. People with diabetes are at risk of a severe form of malignant otitis externa. Diagnosis is based on the signs and symptoms. Culturing the ear canal may be useful in chronic or severe cases.

This patient had received multiple courses of conventional therapy (cleaning, eardrops, antibiotics etc) with no resolution of the process.  Then one day he returned to clinic in total remission - asymptomatic and with a normal otoscopic exam.  When he was asked what recent treatment had worked, he replied that he had taken some earwax from his "good ear" and placed it in his "bad ear."  After that, the inflammation had subsided and then resolved.  

This is an anecdotal case report, from a series of n=1, and as far as I know is unpublished, but it is clearly suggestive of the importance of the individual's microbioime.  Of note, this event occurred many years before even the concept of the human microbiome had been understood or published.  The patient figured this out on his own.

The best single longread about the human microbiome is probably this one at the National Library of Medicine.

Sunday smörgåsbord

There's always more bloggable stuff than there is time, so there will always need to be linkdumps. Herewith a selection of tasty items that I just couldn't take time to make into full articles...

Have you ever wondered why ice cubes in your freezer have little spikes sticking up from them? This article from Caltech discusses the phenomenon.

Some farmers in Russia are providing brassieres for their cows. The primary source even has a (boring) video.

A clever set of five photos entitled "Change you might regret."

British Airways can put you on a plane and promise you will experience a plane crash. The plane is a simulator which is rented by corporations for "team-bonding purposes." Sounds like bulltwaddle to me.

A newlywed young woman starts writing a blog about her new life. She and her husband buy a handgun and a shotgun and have practice drills in case an intruder enters their apartment. They go to a practice range and learn gun safety. Shortly after her last blog entry she is killed by a blast from her shotgun, which went off while her husband was cleaning it. Her father concludes this happened because "God has a plan." The link goes to the Reddit thread; the blog link is at the top of the page.

Lots of stuff in recent weeks about Vitamin D, including a report in the BBC that it may be linked to multiple sclerosis, especially in Northern Europeans who don't get enough exposure to sunlight.

Don't try to remove earwax from your ears. The rule of thumb is not to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear.

A man has been killed by an exploding mobile phone, fragments of which apparently severed his carotid artery.

The price of "carbon credits" is crashing. With world economies in a nosedive, many companies don't need their credits because they've shut down their plants. So they are all trying to sell the credits, and the polluters are able to buy them "dirt cheap," so to speak...

An ice storm has devastated the state of Kentucky, with millions of people stranded without power in the middle of winter. Some are turning for assistance to their Amish neighbors, who are able to provide well water, warm food from wood stoves, fresh milk from cows, kerosene lanterns for lights, and other essentials and amenities, resulting in a renewed appreciation for the simple life.

After the splashdown of flight 1549 in the Hudson, Salon ran an article about the techniques used by airports to chase away birds. Some major airports (JFK, Logan) were built near wetlands because in the 60s and 70s such land was viewed as unsuitable for other development.

A meatpacking plant in Iowa has been accused of exploiting mentally disabled men as cheap labor. It's not a pleasant read.

The word "dappled" (speckled, spotted) literally means "d'appled" (of the apple, apple-like) because the skin of apples often has that speckled appearance. And the word "pied" comes from the magpie, a black-and-white bird, which may be the etymology of the word for the food, since "pies" originally had a combination of fillings (Shepherd's pie, for example), while "pastries" had single fillings. Photo and further discussion at Scribal Terror.

Legislators are worried that students may not pass 11th grade math tests. This past spring, only 1/3 of juniors were proficient on a similar test. So the legislature may change the rules and let students graduate if they take a remediation course and try the test two more times - essentially giving them a diploma for just staying around. Forcryinoutloud...

Credit to "pom" who wrote in the comments section about another physics-based flash game: Gravity Master.

Image credit here.