The researchers do not know if this is because the patch needs to be in place during early development in order to make a difference or if the patch struggles to make it into the inner ear beyond a certain point.

BBC: Genetic patch 'stops deafness' in newborn mice

One boy leaned with his arm across his brother's shoulder, his eyes reclining crescents above his grin, and on the helix of his ear the cartilage formed a small point in exactly the same place as it does on my son's ear.

NPR: 'Ancestor Stones:' Life and War in Sierra Leone

At one point Molly's ear was on the back rather than on the side of her head, according to her mother.

BBC: Molly Askam

While probing the brain of a woman who suffered from epilepsy, Olaf Blanke and his colleagues at the University Hospital of Geneva found that stimulating the right angular gyrus (a point about an inch above and slightly behind the right ear, and just inside the skull) caused her to feel that she was travelling out of her own body.

ECONOMIST: Out-of-body experiences