Tens of millions of years ago, our primate ancestors responded to noises in much the same way many other mammals do, pricking their ears and deftly turning them towards the sound's source.

Scientists call this feature a “neural fossil”. It’s a remnant of a system that once helped our ancestors pinpoint the ...

Human ear muscles that ­scientists long believed were vestigial – or without function – are actually activated when we are trying to listen hard, a new study has found. Although the auricular ­muscles ...

To test the functioning of the muscles, researchers recruited 20 people without hearing problems. They used electromyograph, ...

Learn more about the auricular muscles, which activate when we wiggle our ears, and apparently, when we listen to several ...

Most people think of ear-wiggling as a quirky trick, but new research suggests that human ears still attempt to move when focusing on sounds. While our ears appear static, scientists have discovered ...

Summary: Humans have vestigial ear muscles that once helped our ancestors focus on sounds. New research shows these muscles still activate when we strain to hear in noisy environments. Scientists used ...