About one in five people can wiggle their ears—while the rest watch in non-wiggly envy. But what makes this skill possible for some and impossible for others? Ear movement is controlled by the ...

Tens of millions of years ago, our primate ancestors responded to noises in much the same way many other mammals do, pricking their ears and deftly turning them towards the sound's source. While a few ...

The little muscles that enable people to wiggle their ears unconsciously flex when we're trying to pick one sound out of a din of noise, a new study finds. Think about how cats, dogs and certain ...

When people are trying hard to listen to something, the body seems to do its best to "prick up its ears," even though this ability was lost by our evolutionary ancestors millions of years ago. That's ...

Evolution has largely deprived us of our ability to swivel our ears, but those vestigial muscles still activate when we listen intently, according to new research. Reading time 3 minutes Tens of ...

A “useless” muscle that allows some people to wiggle their ears actually activates when we strain to hear something. Our ape ancestors lost the ability to pivot their ears when they diverged from ...

Muscles only believed to be used to wiggle our ears actually enable people to listen more intently, reveals new research. Researchers have found that the auricular muscles, which helped our distant ...

Humans actually have vestigial muscles that activate when listening closely to something, even though people lost the ability to really move their... Your ears can't prick up, but your ear muscles ...