Hear, Hear For The Bionic Ear

Abstract

One goal of tissue engineering is to create devices that give humans abilities that they don’t naturally possess. For example, imagine being able to detect sounds outside the normal range of human hearing. Human ears can typically pick up sounds within the frequency range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz. At the low end are the rumblings of engines; at the high end are the shrill screeches of high-pitched whistles. A new bionic ear, developed by a team of engineering researchers at Princeton University, can detect not just those frequencies but others in the megahertz to gigahertz range—the range of radio waves. The bionic ear “hears” by detecting electromagnetic waves instead of sound waves, although the signals it detects can be converted into sounds audible to humans. To develop the device, researchers had to integrate sophisticated electronics—capable of transmitting signals to the auditory nerve—into engineered tissue that looks and functions ...