Japanese scientists identify earwax gene
Comments: 10
I’m not sure quite what to make of this, or whether anything needs to be made of it at all. I note it here for sentimental reasons. From the New York Times:
Earwax comes in two types, wet and dry. The wet form predominates in Africa and Europe, where 97 percent or more of the people have it, and the dry form among East Asians, while populations of Southern and Central Asia are roughly half and half. By comparing the DNA of Japanese with each type, the researchers were able to identify the gene that controls which type a person has, they report in the Monday issue of Nature Genetics.
Now this is not about me and my earwax (I’m coping). I say sentimental because many years ago an old girlfriend told me about the different kinds of earwax (although I don’t think she used the unnecessarily evocative terms “wet” and “dry”) and I sometimes think of her when I clean my ears because, since coming to Japan, my earwax has become, well, more Asian, and I’d been thinking that earwax differences might be environmental — atmospheric or dietary, perhaps — rather than genetic.
This is not a question on which I spend a lot of time, so I’m probably not the one to walk you through this, but I had to note with interest that there is a gene after all and that it’s probably not quite as simple as a butterfly flaps its wings in the Philippines and a blogger cleans his ears in Tokyo, or that I eat more rice than I used to.
(I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the ways these little bits and pieces of knowledge come together over the years, but I used to visit this same girlfriend and sit in a large bay window and read while she played Bach in the style of Henry Mancini. Preludes from the Well-tempered Clavier would morph into The Baby Elephant Walk, or the aria from The Goldberg Variations into the theme from The Pink Panther, and I would laugh hysterically — I was young and impressionable — as the scales fell from my ears.)
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Posted to Oh, the Humanity • 2006.01.30 (Mon) • 10:31
Comments
Posted by Charles M. Gerungan 2006.01.30, 18:18
Okay. So, I thought, this Jeremy guy either has a great eye or has lots of time on his hands to be able to produce those stunning photographs. I think I know which now ;¬).
Posted by Florida VJ 2006.01.31, 01:27
Amazing what people get paid to research :)
Posted by zedzdead 2006.01.31, 02:00
We bought, strike that; Father Christmas brought our 4 year old daughter, playdough doggie hospital. You can pull his ear and ear-wax comes out in whatever color you loaded the dog up with.
Tonight I’m going to do a mustard colour for “dry” and brown for “wet”. I’ll try and listen to some Bach too. The kids are in for some education tonight….
Posted by music maniac 2006.01.31, 09:21
So, what about North America..I didn’t see what kind of ear wax they have included in this :)
Posted by Tratamento de Piscinas 2006.01.31, 15:59
Good Blog! I am made an impression.
Although I to use the translation of google to read.
They could do an automatic version in others linguagens of this blog?
Sorymy poor english
Posted by dana 2006.01.31, 16:07
This is so interesting because my mother used to remark that I had ‘wet’ earwax, compared to most of our family, whose earwax was considered ‘dry.’ She said at these were the two types of earwax. I always thought that this was some Chinese cultural belief, but I guess it is pretty scientifically sound as well.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens 2006.02.04, 07:24
Could also explain why Americans seem to prefer to clean their ears with cotton swabs, and Japanese use those bamboo scoopers.
Posted by John R 2006.02.11, 05:45
Thank you for this. People always look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them that Japanese have different earwax than Westerners! I’ll carry this article in my pocket from now on just in case.
Posted by Rama 2006.02.16, 15:21
Yup, i read about this too and the funny thing is they still aren’t quite sure why were stuck with earwax in the first place ;) Oh and get this - there are DIFFERENT colours of earwax - the most common being pumkin coloured…hmm makes you wonder which unhappy research assistant is running around with a cotton bud getting samples..eaaaaaargh
Posted by Luis Alberto Barandiaran 2006.03.30, 15:42
Seems very sound that earwax is dna defined. In fact, every single organ and thing in our body is defined in our gene pool. Once scientist begin to comprehend this, they should be able to alter and cure things at the genetic level. I’m sure there can be also bad applications for this, but the good ones I belief overgrow the bad.
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