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20th Dec 2016

One In 100 People Are Born With This Weird Hole In Their Ear

fionnuala

Bodies are weird.

I mean, obviously they’re also amazing – that whole ‘keeping us alive and functioning’ thing is pretty underrated.

But then you have things like webbed toes and double joints… yeah. Not great.

Then there are the parts of the body that service absolutely no function. Appendix – I’m looking at you.

Turns out that about 1 in every 100 people has something similar on the top of their ear.

Just under 1% of people in the UK are born with barely visible holes in their ears, known as a preauricular sinus.

Preauricular Sinus

Credit: Wikipedia

The congenital disorder was first reported in 1864, according to a study published in the US National Library of Medicine.

In Ethiopia, people believe the holes grant wealth to those who have them. So, if you realise you have one, it might be no harm to do the Euromillions.

The cause isn’t known but Business Insider reported that evolutionary biologist, Neil Shubin, theorised they could be an ‘evolutionary remnant of fish gills’.

One step closer to being a mermaid …

Kim

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