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 ...

But the auricular muscles might not be so useless after all. By Laura Baisas Published Jan 31, 2025 12:00 AM EST Deposit Photos Get the Popular Science daily ...

Muscles only believed to be used to wiggle our ears actually enable people to listen more intently, reveals new research.

Vestigial human ear muscles react to sounds even if the external ear does not move. This could be used to build better earing aids. If you hear something interesting, you might prick up your ears.

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 ...

If you hear something interesting, you might prick up your ears. That's a figurative expression, of course. People's ears don't actually move upward. But NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce found that this old ...