• Question: why do people have droopy ears

    Asked by mariam to Aime, Akshat, Diana, Gemma, Judith on 19 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Akshat Rathi

      Akshat Rathi answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      While I am not the right person to answer this question, I found the following while trawling the web. Would any scientists please enlighten whether the following is true or there is some other explanation.

      A number of scientific studies have been conducted over the years in an attempt to answer this perplexing question. One such project found that on average, ears grow one-hundredth of an inch every year.
      Many people are under that impression that our ears and nose get bigger throughout life because they are made of cartilage, which continues to grow after our bones have stopped. While this is true of the cartilage in fish that lack a bone skeleton, such as sharks, the expert at the MadSci network says it’s simply not true for humans and other animals with a bone skeleton.

      So what accounts for the largish ears and nose one tends to see on older folk? Some speculate that large ears somehow correlate with longer life, so those with biggish ears are simply the ones who make it to old age. And on a plastic surgery site, we read, “Nasal cartilage becomes thinner and loses its elasticity as we age, causing the tip of the nose to lengthen and droop.” So maybe our nose and ears just get droopier?

      Fact is, no one really knows. This smells like one of those eternally confounding scientific questions that we’ll continue to hear about until someone sniffs out a satisfactory explanation.

    • Photo: Judith McCann

      Judith McCann answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      I think in general,ears have evolved the cartilage lobe to be a bigger receptor for sound (so it funnels noise into the ear drum) I thought the droopy bit was just how the skin and tissue on the ear responds to gravity-its a part of the body with nothing reallyto support it since it sticks out!!!

      To askhat-as we age it it’s not just the catilage that looses elasticity but the skin around the nose stops being as plump,it could just be sort of an optical illusion .I.e it’s not that the nose is getting longer but that the tissue around is slightly further away and not as plump (if you get me)

      Hopefully it doesn’t get bigger as we age since I’ve already got quite a big nose hehe

    • Photo: Gemma Sharp

      Gemma Sharp answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Not all people have droopy ear lobes!

      Around 1/3 people have attached ear lobes that don’t hang down.

      The allele for free (droopy) ear lobes is dominant, and the allele for attached ear lobes is recessive – that means a person has to have two copies of the attached ear lobe allele to have attached earlobes, any other combination of alleles will result in droopy earlobes.

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