Today I learned that earwax differs depending where on the world you are from. There are multiple types of earwax, and the basics of how your earwax looks is determined by your genetics. Around European people yellowish to slightly brownish earwax is quite common, while in eastern Asian areas whiter and dryer earwax is a thing. Generally speaking the main purpose of earwax is to keep your ears clean and healthy. It collects all dust and dirt that might flies around and bind it before it can get too deep into your ear, it also has an anti-bacterial function and unironically not less important: It prevents insects from checking your ear out as it has a very bad smell.

I came across this when cleaning my ears and asking myself “Where does earwax even come from?”. Interestingly it not only unveiled this detail about earwax to me, but also a bunch of other things. I highly recommend to check out the Wikipedia page which actually has a world map about the wet/yellow vs dry/white ear wax distribution, as well as some rather interesting (German speaking) video on YouTube.