Sinuses are so pilots know for sure they have a head cold and can tell if they are going up or down.
They help your voice resonate when you sing…
No, this explanation was already discounted in Cecil’s column, which was linked to by whitetho earlier in the thread.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_302.html
The sinuses are mostly irrelevant to the airflow patterns in and out of our head, even though they seem so close to the passages.
They don’t have any appreciable impact on mass, given how porous bone is to begin with and how small they really are.
No other ideas about their function really make any sense to begin with.
Yep, they’re the upper respiratory equivalent of an appendix. It would be really neat to be able to bugle like an elk, and maybe we could drill and cut and make it happen for one really, really bizarre person, but no primate can do this, and there’s no reason to think we ever could.
Maybe future generations will be able to pack them full of nanoscale computing technology that has a wetware interface to the brain. We’re a long way from that, but I see no problems in installing a one-way spigot to drain excess mucus and generally equalize pressure.
Then you could fill it with beer and have the ultimate, ah, six-ounce? Just watch out for brain freeze.
It stings a little.
Warning: the link below demonstrates the famed Caldwell-Luc sinus surgery procedure.
add the http://www.
to the rest of the link below if you really want to see it.
QtM, MD
Not to contradict the Great One, but it sure feels like they resonate when I sing. Not that there’s any airflow through them, just that the air that’s already in there seems to sing along. Again, no scientific backing here, just the feeling. Actually, now that I thing about it, the entire head seems to resonate, so maybe that’s what it is. If they feel blocked for some reason, a good fifteen minutes of scales seems to open the up for me.