eardrum
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Parents may be able to spot ear infections with a paper cone and an app
Researchers are working on a smartphone app that could help diagnose ear infections. As NPR reports, the app uses the phone's microphone, its speaker and a small paper cone. In its current form, the app sends short, sound pulses through a funnel and into the ear canal. It then measures the echo of that sound, and an algorithm uses the reading to predict if there's fluid behind the eardrum, one of the common symptoms of infection.
Tiny ‘hearing’ device is 100,000 times thinner than your eardrum
Finding long-range, low-powered sensors for wearable devices is the next scientific frontier. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University are working on atomically thin transducer "drumheads" that can send and receive signals at radio frequencies even greater than those we can hear with our natural ear. Better yet, the drumhead is 10,000,000,000,000 times smaller in volume and 100,000 times thinner than the human eardrum and can detect a much wider range of signal than other similar devices.
Asius' ADEL earbud balloon promises to take some pressure off your poor eardrums
Listener fatigue: it's a condition that affects just about everyone who owns a pair of earbuds and one that myriad manufacturers have tried to mitigate with various configurations. According to researchers at Asius Technologies, though, the discomfort you experience after extended periods of earphone listening isn't caused by faulty design or excessively high volumes, but by "acoustic reflex." Every time you blast music through earbuds, your ear muscles strain to reduce sound waves by about 50 decibels, encouraging many audiophiles to crank up the volume to even higher, eardrum-rattling levels. To counteract this, Asius has developed something known as the Ambrose Diaphonic Ear Lens (ADEL) -- an inflatable polymer balloon that attaches to the ends of earbuds. According to Asius' Samuel Gido, the inflated ADEL effectively acts as a "second eardrum," absorbing sound and redirecting it away from the ear's most sensitive regions. No word yet on when ADEL may be available for commercial use, but head past the break for a video explanation of the technology, along with the full presser.
