ANDRZEJ KRAUZEThis issue devoted to hearing research completes our five-year tour of the “classical” Aristotelian senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Each year, a different sense commanded our immediate attention; we saved hearing for last because we thought hearing research might be less interesting. Boy oh boy, were we wrong. The more we surveyed the current state of the field, the more excited we got.
So here (hear!) you have it. Our own behind-the-scenes need for a primer to consult on how a sound turns into a nerve impulse led to a beautiful two-page infographic of the auditory pathway. Hidden deep in the human inner ear, encased in bone, is the amazing organ of Corti, a spiral staircase nearly an inch long, studded with sensory cells that deliver sound to our brains in a frequency-specific fashion. To get a fuller sense of auditory dynamics, check out the online offerings selected to enhance this issue, including an animated tour of the middle and inner ear responding to bars from a Beethoven symphony.
In “Aural History,” Geoffrey Manley lays out how the middle and inner ears of terrestrial vertebrates evolved. Despite branching ...
