Evolution has left humans with many vestigial traits—remnants of once-useful biological features that serve little or no modern purpose. One such example is the muscles around our ears, which in many ...

Proteins long known to be essential for hearing have been hiding a talent: they also act as gatekeepers that shuffle fatty ...

Evolution is a master recycler. It often uses old structures (or ancient genes) for new jobs. The mammalian ear is a perfect example. Over the eons, the jawbones of our fish ancestors became three ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...