The inner ear may not seem like a particularly bony place, but human ears in fact have three small bones (also known as ossicles): the malleus, the incus and the stapes. While most people would assume ...

The inner ear, a complex sensory apparatus incorporating the cochlea, semicircular canals, and otolithic organs, is pivotal for auditory perception and balance. Recent multidisciplinary research has ...

An artist’s reconstruction of the locomotor behavior and paleoenvironment of Lufengpithecus. This extinct primate lived in East Asia during the Miocene. “It would have been about the size of a ...

A new study reveals the surprisingly convergent evolution in the inner ear of mammals. An international research team led by Nicole Grunstra from the University of Vienna and Anne Le Maître from the ...

The researchers showed how bone erosion caused by cholesteatoma occurs. This study showed that a subset of cells called osteoclastogenic fibroblasts expresses a protein, activin A, which causes the ...

The bony inner ear of a squirrel monkey (in blue) and the soft tissues inside it (in red). Relations between bony and soft tissue structures have been studied in extant species to infer inner ear ...

The symptoms of Meniere’s disease are caused by a buildup of fluid within a delicate region of the inner ear known as the labyrinth. It consists of the cochlea, which is the snail-shaped hair-lined ...

A single bone in the inner ear marks the difference between the two major groups of bats. The anatomical difference arose very early in the history of these animals. It may have led the two groups to ...