Understanding Hearing, Molecule By Molecule


	Understanding Hearing, Molecule By Molecule

Mohir

7-13-2008 1:22 PM

1209 views

tags:

ear, anatomy

Mohir says:

other sensory system in biology and the electrical engineering world is capable of this feat.

“It’s one of the most beautifully deigned systems in the body,” says Manfred Auer of Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division. “But how it really works remains a mystery. Our goal is to determine what the system looks like, so we can determine how it functions.”

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/5c32f3ed-a029-407d-a259-9b9a463e8405/349189EA-E7B2-40E4-9825-870EA9D0CC89/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710131216.htm" href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710131216.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.sciencedaily.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710131216.htm">Berkeley Lab scientists have for the first time pieced together the three-dimensional structure of one of nature’s most exquisite pieces of machinery, a gossamer-like filament of proteins in the inner ear that enables the sense of hearing and balance.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710131216.htm"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.sciencedaily.com/img/3E9335FD-FE37-4FF2-A493-57B8251DEA4C" alt="" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710131216.htm"><P>Their work opens the door for a more fundamental understanding of how hearing works. It may also lead to improved ways to treat some forms of hearing loss, which affects about ten percent of people.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710131216.htm">he filaments help transform the mechanical vibrations of sound into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the brain. They are only four nanometers wide and 160 nanometers long (one nanometer is one-billionth of a meter), but if enough of them break, the world becomes silent. They’re part of a sensory system that operates over a range of stimuli spanning six orders of magnitude. With it, people can hear a pin drop and a jet throttle to full power. </blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/349189EA-E7B2-40E4-9825-870EA9D0CC89/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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