It turns out the human ear got off to a fishy start. Literally. A fascinating new study reveals that the mammalian outer ear has its evolutionary roots in the gills of ancient fish. This ...

Human ear muscles that ­scientists long believed were vestigial – or without function – are actually activated when we are ...

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.

Physicists have discovered a sophisticated, previously unknown set of 'modes' within the human ear that put important constraints on how the ear amplifies faint sounds, tolerates noisy blasts, and ...

A mechanism that activates specific muscles in our ears is a leftover from our evolutionary past, back when our ancestors depended more on their hearing for survival.

New research has highlighted a fascinating link between human outer ears and the gills of ancient fish. Gene-editing ...

Recent research conducted at Saarland University in Germany revealed that humans also move their ears in response to sound — at least to some degree. When we strain to catch what someone is ...

To test whether enhancer activity — and therefore gene regulation — is similar in fish gills and human outer ears, Crump and his colleagues inserted human outer ear enhancers into zebrafish ...

Get Instant Summarized Text (Gist) The mammalian outer ear has been traced back to ancient fish gills, revealing its evolutionary origin. Both structures share a rare tissue type, elastic ...

The scientists were able to incorporate enhancers that help form the elastic cartilage of the human outer ear into the genomes of zebrafish . Remarkably, the human outer ear enhancers were active ...