![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090508035208im_/http://nsf.gov/images/x.gif) News From the Field Power Steering for Your Hearing
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April 21, 2009
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Utah and Texas researchers have learned how quiet sounds are magnified by bundles of tiny, hair-like tubes atop "hair cells" in the ear: when the tubes dance back and forth, they act as "flexoelectric motors" that amplify sound mechanically. "We are reporting discovery of a new nanoscale motor in the ear," says Richard Rabbitt, the study's principal author and a professor and chair of bioengineering at the University of Utah College of Engineering.
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Source University of Utah
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