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 ...

For the first two weeks of life, mice with a hereditary form of deafness have nearly normal neural activity in the auditory system, according to a new study. Previous studies indicate that this early ...

Hot or not? Peeking inside an animal’s ear — even a fossilized one — may tell you whether it was warm- or cold-blooded. Using a novel method that analyzes the size and shape of the inner ear canals, ...

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 ...

A new study of a 7–8-million-year-old extinct fossil ape from China called Lufengpithecus offers new insights into the evolution of human bipedalism. The study, published in The Innovation, was ...

The first warm-blooded animals appeared abruptly 233 million years ago, according to clues hidden deep inside their ears. Before now, scientists estimated that warm-bloodedness, or endothermy, ...

One of the things that makes mammals, mammals is that we’re warm-blooded-- our bodies have high metabolisms that maintain our internal temperature independent of our surroundings, unlike cold-blooded ...

Two major groups of bats that use echolocation have different structures for connecting the inner ear to the brain, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Chicago, the American ...

Earwax, medically known as cerumen, is a substance naturally produced by glands in the ear canal. It serves critical functions: Trapping dust, dirt, bacteria, bugs (really!) and other foreign ...

Warm-bloodedness is a key mammal trait, but it's been a mystery when our ancestors evolved it. A new study points to an unlikely source for telling a fossil animal's body temperature: the size of tiny ...