I chose to look up otolaryngology. I’m taking fourth semester Spanish and one of our assignments is to speak with someone from another country for thirty minutes on video chat, four times throughout the semester. Well, today, I asked my conversation partner to tell me a new word that he thought I was unlikely to know, and I wasn’t disappointed. He taught me the word “Otorrinolaringología”, which means otolaryngology. He explained what it was during our conversation but since I’m very interested in the medical field and I thought it was such a fun word, I wanted to include it in a Wikipedia trails post!
I then jumped over to the Wiki page for otitis externa, which is apparently an ear infection known more commonly as “swimmer’s ear”. I’ve heard of this before but I never knew the technical word for it, so that was kind of neat. Also, there is a pretty gross picture on this Wiki page. You’ve been warned!! Lol.
Then I noticed another word I didn’t recognized and jumped over to the Wiki page for “cerumen”, which is apparently the fancy medical term for earwax! What I did not know is that one of the major elements that makes up ear wax is fatty acid. There is a picture of a huge chunk of earwax on this page, so not as gross as the infected ear but still not really something you really look forward to seeing. Haha.
I also didn’t know that squalene was part of what makes up ear wax and I didn’t even know what squalene was, so I figured that would be the perfect place to end my Wikipedia trails post, so I jumped over to the Wiki page for that. Squalene is a natural 30 carbon organic compound. Although it is found in many places, the primary source is shark liver oil. We have a compound in our ear that is also very prominently found in shark liver oil. So there, now that’s something you know…
 |
| (Squalene; online source, www.compmed.com) |
No comments:
Post a Comment