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Saturday, December 18, 2021
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.
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...
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