The bionic ear was solved with a seashell

Graeme Clark struggled to slide an electrode array around the spiral of the cochlea. Then, playing with a turban shell on a beach, he found he could feed a blade of grass all the way along its spiral. Stiff at the base and flexible at the tip was the answer. In 1978 in Melbourne he implanted the first modern multichannel cochlear implant. The patient could hear "Waltzing Matilda" again.