The hearing organ in mammals is a spiraling structure called the "cochlea" from the Greek word for snail. It spirals out from the saccule (one of the balance organs). There are two and a half turns in ...

Scientists have kept a tiny slice of cochlea alive outside the body, directly witnessing how hair cells amplify sound. The finding confirms a universal principle of hearing and could pave the way for ...

Schematic of the model. Above, we unroll the spiral-shaped cochlea into a model of two fluid-filled chambers partitioned by the basilar membrane (BM). Pressure waves in the fluid are accompanied by BM ...