"Our assumption was that doubling the spiral would halve the stiffness of the gating spring. That was not the case," says Dr. Thomas Effertz, University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), and one of two ...

Hearing begins with the stretching of elastic molecular "springs" that open ion channels in the sensory hair cells of the ear. For decades ...

Hearing begins with the stretching of elastic molecular 'springs' that open ion channels in the sensory hair cells of the ear. For decades, researchers have known that these gating springs must exist, ...