Outer ear

These are the bits we can see, and also the ear canal. They act like a funnel to catch sound waves and direct them to the ear drum. (A canal is a pathway for water, but the ear canal is a pathway for sound)

Middle ear
This is a small air-filled space on the inside of the eardrum. There are 3 tiny bones called ossicles in this part. They are called the hammer, anvil and stirrup (because that is what they look like). When the sound waves move the eardrum, these bones move and pass on the vibration to the very much smaller oval shaped window of the cochlea (the bit that looks like a shell). The hammer is touching the ear drum so it shakes when the sound comes through, and the movement goes right through the anvil to the stirrup, which is touching the window of the cochlea.

Inner ear
The cochlea has fluid in it, which moves due to the vibrations and bends hairs on the outside of cells lining the cochlea. There are about 17,000 hair cells in each ear, so they really are tiny. They are not like the hair on your head. Some of these hair cells (the 'inner hair cells') create an electrical impulse (signal), which is sent along the auditory nerve to the brain. Most of them (the 'outer' ones), however, are like tiny muscle cells, which react to the vibrations in the fluid by trembling and shaking; in this way they work like high quality amplifiers and make the vibrations much stronger and clearer for the smaller number of inner hair cells. The brain then works out what you are hearing. The semi-circular canals in your inner ear contain fluid too. They send messages to your brain to help you keep your balance when you move.

Hearing
If your ears are working well, you hear sounds all the time. You cant switch your ears off, even when you are asleep.

Listening
When you really want to listen to something you tell your brain to concentrate on that sound. If your ears are healthy and are both working well, they can 'turn down' other sounds while you concentrate on what you want to hear. If one ear isnt working as well as the other then they cant do this as well. If your outer hair cells have been damaged by too much loud noise, what you want to hear can get mixed up and smothered by the other sounds around. With healthy ears you can choose what you want to listen to, but you can't choose what you hear.

Understanding
Your brain sorts out the sounds and tells you what they mean. Some people have problems understanding what they are hearing because their ears don't work well and they don't hear all the sounds. The brain does not get enough information to work it out, or the messages may be mixed up.

Selective hearing
Lots of mums and dads think that kids have this particular 'problem'. They think that you select (choose) what you are going to hear and what you definitely can't hear! Many mums say that dads do this too! In fact, this is something we may all do to try and make our lives a bit easier.

What I like to hear My dog barking in his sleep. A friend saying, "Can you come What I don't like to hear and play?" Birds singing in the morning. Some children wrote what they liked to hear and what they didn't like to hear.

"Let's go out for tea." I don't like to hear very loud music. I like my mummy saying that she I hate to hear mosquitoes buzzing in my ears. loves me. Mum and dad arguing. I like to listen to music. People screaming. "Do you want an ice-cream?" Chainsaws are too noisy. Mum saying goodnight. Mum saying it's time for bed. I like to hear the computer. "You have to eat your vegetables." I like to hear tea cooking. "Tidy up your room." I like to hear dad saying, "Yes People's fingernails scraping down the blackboard. you can stay up later."

Dr Kim says
Sometimes your ears feel funny when you are on a plane, going through a tunnel or driving up hills. This is because there is air inside your ear drum and air outside. The pressure outside the ear changes when you go up high. You need to let more air into the inside of your ear or let some out to balance the air pressure on each side of your ear drum.Try opening your mouth wide as if you are yawning, or chewing or blowing your nose. This lets air through the eustachian tube into the inner ear, your ears will feel like they go 'pop' and you will be able to hear normally again. Aren't ears wonderful?

Catching soundwaves in the air. Sending them along to where The message gets through to your brain Faster than the fastest train. Sorting out what you want to hear Whether the sound is far or near. Wonderful music, nature's sounds Birdsong, laughter and merry-gorounds. You wouldn't know when mum says, "Time for bed" If you hadn't an ear on each side of your head.

BH

Cornea This is the see-through skin that covers the front of your eye. It is clear like glass and it has no blood vessels in it. Sclera This is the tough skin which covers the outside of the eyeball (except for the see-through cornea). We call it the 'white' of the eye. Iris The iris controls the amount of light that enters the eye. The iris is the coloured part of your eye. Pupil This is the hole in the coloured iris. It lets light into your eye. It gets very small in bright light, and bigger in dull light. The lens The lens focuses light onto the retina. It changes shape to make sure that the 'picture' on the retina is as clear as possible. Retina This is like a movie screen which shows the picture you are seeing - upside down, remember? The retina has two lots of cells called 'rods' and 'cones' (because that is what they look like.) Rods can 'see' black and white. Cones can 'see' colours. They turn the picture into an electrical message for the brain. Sometimes people don't see all the colours - look at our topic 'Colour blindness' to find out more. Blind spot This is a bit of your retina which is not sensitive to light because there are no rods or cones there. It is the spot where the optic nerve is joined on to the retina. Optic nerve The electrical messages from the retina travel along the optic nerve to your brain. It's a bit like the cable that carries all the TV pictures from your aerial to your TV so that you can see the programs. The great thing is that our eyes take these 'movies' all the time and we don't need any film or camera.

Eyelids and Eyelashes These protect your eyes. The eyelids can shut out light so that you can sleep. They will shut very fast if they feel something that is trying to get into your eye. Eyelashes Eyelashes are very sensitive, and if they feel dust coming they trap it as your eyelids close.

Eyebrows Eyebrows also help to keep dust and sweat out of your eyes.

Tear glands These are small glands inside your upper eye lid. Their job is to make tears to keep the surface of your eyeball clean and moist, and help protect your eye from damage. When you blink, your eyelids spread the tears over the surface of the eye. Small things that are on your eye (like specks of dust) wash into the corner of your eye next to your nose. Sometimes tears flow over your lower eyelid (when you cry, or you have hay fever), but mostly the tears flow down a tiny tube at the edge of your lower eyelid, next to your nose. (If you look very carefully you can see a tiny dot that is the beginning of that tube). This tube carries the tears to the back of your nose (and this is why your nose 'runs' when you cry!)

Conjunctiva This is the lining on the inside of your eyelid and the outside of the front of your eye (except for the special skin of the cornea). You can see some tiny blood vessels on the conjunctiva over your eye. If your eyes get sore, these blood vessels get bigger and your eye looks red.

There are two lots of fluid in the eye. Aqueous humour Aqueous means water, and humour means fluid. This watery stuff fills the front of the eyeball around the lens. Vitreous humour This is a thicker jelly-like liquid which fills the larger part of the eyeball and keeps it in shape. (Vitreous means glassy, because the vitreous humour is very clear, so that light can pass through it).

Ciliary muscles These are a circle of tiny muscles around the lens. They change the shape of the lens by squeezing and relaxing. They squeeze (making the lens fat) to look at nearby objects, and relax (making the lens thinner) for far away objects. Your eyes are very beautiful and also very clever, because all the different parts work together to help you see!

Your eyes are like a wonderful kind of camera.

They take pictures of the world around you and send the pictures to your brain. Your brain works out what your eyes are seeing. This happens from the moment that you open your eyes in the morning to when you close your eyes at night.

How a camera works

The light rays from an object pass through the lens of the camera and get recorded on a film or a computer chip.

Do you notice something about this drawing? Yes, the picture that is recorded by the camera is upside down (of course, when you look at the picture as a printed photo or on a computer screen, it is not upside down.)

How your eyes work

Your eye works in a similar way to a camera - light passes through the lens of your eye and is 'recorded' on the back of your eye (the retina).

Do you notice something about this drawing? Yes, the picture that your eye takes is upside down too! Why don't you see things upside down? Well, your eye sends the picture to your brain, and your brain turns the picture the right way up and tells you what you are looking at. So you see things the right way up.

Dr Kate says:
Eyes are really amazing. We need to look after them very carefully, because they are so important. Our topics on protecting your eyes and wearing glasses will help you.

Eye can see butterflies, Eye can see clouds Eye can see TV Eye can see crowds.

Eye can see truth Eye can see lies Eye can see feelings In other people's eyes.

BH

What to know about noses

Your nose sits in the middle of your face. If you try to look at the end of it, you go cross-eyed. The only time you get to see it is in the mirror, and even then you can't really see it well from the side. However you probably already know some things about noses. We mostly breathe through our noses.

We smell things through our noses.

Our sense of smell helps us to recognise tastes. The two holes in your nose are called nostrils.

The end of your nose can be wiggled around with your finger. Some people's noses can wiggle around by themselves!

Here are some other things you might not know: Between the nostrils there is a wall of very thin bone and cartilage, called the septum. A nose bleed can occur when blood vessels in the septum break. This can be caused by colds, dry air, exercise, pollen, bumping your nose, or picking your nose. (If you get a lot of nose bleeds, see a doctor - especially if they won't stop easily.)

Behind your nose is a space called the nasal cavity.

A sneeze can travel at up to 100 miles an hour that's around 160 kms an hour! Just think how fast and how far germs can travel from one sneeze!

Grab a tissue quickly, before you spread the germs around!

How noses work

You breathe air in through your nostrils. As the air comes in it is filtered by lots of little hairs just inside the nostrils, to remove any dust. They are called nasal hairs.

The inside of the nose is a bit wet and slippery at all times. This is so that the air can have moisture added to it before it goes down into your lungs. Your nose also warms the air that you breathe in. The slippery stuff in your nose is called mucus [say mew-kus] - actually, lots of kids may call mucus 'snot'. The warm moist air that you breathe in carries oxygen down into your lungs, and is then breathed back out through the nose (or mouth), carrying carbon dioxide that your body is getting rid of.

If you breathe in something that irritates the little hairs, they might make you shoot it straight back out again. We call this sneezing.

(I knew that you would know that!)

At the back of the nose is a lump of tissue, called the adenoids, which is very much like the tonsils. It helps fight any infection when germs get in.

Professional noses
For some people, the nose is very important indeed. Some people have very sensitive noses, and can be found doing very unusual jobs.

There

are

people

who

are

employed to use their noses' in the winemaking and perfume

industries. Some people's noses can recognise thousands of

different

perfumes,

herbs,

spices and flowers. Other people are employed to sniff out fumes and odours around factories to see how much pollution is being caused.

Of course, dogs have an even better sense of smell, and their noses are used in all sorts of ways to help humans. There are rescue dogs, drug-sniffing dogs and tracking dogs. These dogs all have a very keen sense of smell.

All these noses have to be trained to do their very important jobs!

Famous noses
In the story of Pinocchio, the wooden boy had a nose which grew longer every time he told a lie. Wouldn't it be great if that happened in real life? Cleopatra, the famous Egyptian queen, was known for her great beauty AND her big nose! Cyrano De Bergerac, a character in the book and film of that name, was famous for the size of his nose.

Tycho Brahe, a famous astronomer from Denmark, had an unusual nose the end of it was made of gold. He lost the real end of his nose in a sword fight.

There are some famous actors and actresses who have also been known as The Nose', but we are too kind to mention their names. You shouldn't call attention to someone's appearance and embarrass them should you? We know that it's the character of a person that's important, not how they look.

Dr Kim says
If you have a cold, try to stay away from others so that they don't catch it from you. Cover your nose when you sneeze, so that the germs don't fly every where. If you don't have a tissue, use your hand, but then wash your hand before you touch anything else. It's a good idea to use tissues to blow your nose, and then put them in a bin or flush them down the toilet. If you stick them up your sleeve or drop them anywhere, germs will spread when other people have to pick them up."

What kids say about noses

My dad always said, "Keep your nose clean!" when I was going out. He meant stay out of trouble.