These Moths Can Track Sounds with One Ridiculously Simple Ear

Researchers hope the tiny moth ears could someday inspire improvements to cell phones and hearing aids.   View in browser

Image credits: Ilia Ustyantsev via Flickr These Moths Can Track Sounds with One Ridiculously Simple Ear Researchers hope the tiny moth ears could someday inspire improvements to cell phones and hearing aids.   Nala Rogers, Staff Writer December 18, 2021                                                                                                                                                                                  (Inside Science) -- One membrane, three neurons. That's all a lesser wax moth needs to not only hear a sound, but pinpoint where it's coming from. Now, researchers are working to figure out how they do it -- knowledge that could someday be useful in designing products such as cell phones and hearing aids. Humans and most other vertebrates can sense the direction a sound is coming from because they have two ears separated in space. "We can tell where sounds are coming from because the two ears receive incoming signals at a slightly different time. And even though we don't consciously realize this, our brains are able to basically do the math," said Lara Díaz-García, a doctoral candidate working with James Windmill and Andrew Reid at the University of Strathclyde in the U.K. That solution doesn't work for very small animals because sound reaches both ears at almost the same time... Read more Copyright 2021 American Institute of Physics. Inside Science syndicates its articles, columns, blogs and videos to news organizations. To initiate syndication, or request permission to republish our content (on a one-time or continuing basis), please contact Inside Science at insidescience@aip.org. News organizations seeking permission to republish Inside Science content must fully credit Inside Science as the original source of the content, include the author byline, and republish the original, unaltered form (excluding content titles, headlines, or sub-headlines). The reprint format can be seen here. Copyright conditions and usage terms are subject to change at any time without consent or any type of prior notice. To unsubscribe from all future mailings from Inside Science please click here. To manage your email subscriptions please click here.

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