Angry fathers who assert that their disobedient children have rocks in their heads or “rocks for brains” aren’t far off point. An item in Wired last month noted that our heads, specifically our inner ears, contain what the American Hearing Research Foundation calls “ear rocks,” bits of calcium carbonate known as otoconia. (Although “rocks” may be literally generous; otoconia is Greek for “ear dust” and a Google scan of scientific literature favors the marginally larger descriptor “crystals,” not rocks or even very small rocks.)
Whatever their likeness, the ear rocks rattle around our heads and help us maintain balance, sense gravity and track linear acceleration, the latter of which, if my powers of science and analogy are solid, is similar to an accelerometer, like the one in the Wii Remote. Vertigo may result from ear rocks falling into the wrong canals of the inner ear. But unlike the Wii Remote, ear rocks are unlikely to fly across the room as a result of sudden erratic movement by their owner. Rock on, ear rocks!