What's your favorite sound? Ever wondered the precise mechanisms and genes that allow us to hear a baby laughing, a cat purring, or Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody? You might be a bit more curious after the Yanni Laurel viral challenge to learn that the 2018 Kavli winners for neuroscience are Christine Petit, James Hudspeth, and Robert Fettiplace for their discoveries of how we process auditory information. Turns out the hairs in our ears actively twitch to create an amplification system for sound in our ear canals and there are over two dozen genes responsible for making sure these systems function properly. At the Kavli Prize unveiling two weeks ago in New York, we learned that these hairs age over time which is why adults have trouble hearing certain frequencies. A few brilliant teenagers have taken advantage of this fact to invent a ringtone that parents over the age of 40 cannot hear. View the full video at bit.ly/kavli_neuro 🧠🔈 . . . Footage and images courtesy of Institut Pasteur de...