Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Publishing the Latest Results of our School of Life Science

It is well-known that insectivorous bats can prey at night through their keen hearing, not sight. They are born to use echolocation, which is an ability that one emits ultrasonic waves to locate one’s position, so that their game can find no way out. Then which things in their bodies enable them to do that? Recently experts on Life Science from England and our university uncovered this mystery to us. They found that a protein coded by Prestin in the cells of the hair on the external ear could help mammals win such nature-endowed hearing.

 

The latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a research paper, which was written by our research team led by Professor Zhang Shuyi of our School of Life Science and some scholars in London University, such as Doctor. Stephen Rossiter. The title is “The hearing gene Prestin reunites echolocating bats”.