Ear Wax..

That’s right you can find out what’s your ancestral background through your ear wax.

Right, it’s not a definite thing but let me tell you how this came about.

****WARNING: a bit of grossness is going to happen here.****

A certain someone was cleaning his ear in my room, and when I never understood why the darn earwax was so brown! Not to mention even sticky looking. Cause my ear wax is not like that and thank goodness cause it looks positively gross. Hence i went online to do some research on ear wax and this is what I found.

Ear Wax or otherwise known as cerumen, waxy substance secreted in the ear canal of humans and many other mammals. It works to protect our ears. (Yes this is all according to wikipedia). Anyway there are two types of ear wax, the moist type and the dry type, which looks like so. Take a guess which is the wet one and the dry one

I know I know it’s gross, but hear me out, or rather just read this.

There are two distinct genetically determined types of earwax: the wet type, which is dominant, and the dry type, which is recessive. Asians and Native Americans are more likely to have the dry type of cerumen (grey and flaky), whereas Caucasians and Africans are more likely to have the wet type (honey-brown to dark-brown and moist).^[2] Cerumen type has been used by anthropologists to track human migratory patterns, such as those of the Inuit.^[3]

The difference in cerumen type has been tracked to a single base change (a single nucleotide polymorphism) in a gene known as “ATP-binding cassette C11 gene.”^[4] In addition to affecting cerumen type, this mutation also reduces sweat production. The researchers conjecture that the reduction in sweat was beneficial to the ancestors of East Asians and Native Americans who are thought to have lived in cold climates.

Let’s just say that I am possibly with some Native American heritage and my other half could have African heritage . Fascinating eh. Check out your ear and see what is your possible ancestral background. hehe..

Ok now you can slap me for a disgusting.. but informative post. ^_^