Despite approaches in regenerative medicine using stem cells, bio-engineered scaffolds, and targeted drug delivery to enhance human tissue repair, clinicians remain unable to regenerate large-scale, multi-tissue defects in situ. The study of regenerative biology using mammalian models of complex tissue regeneration offers an opportunity to discover key factors that stimulate a regenerative rath...

Several surgical solutions have been proposed for reconstruction of the auricle in patients whose ear is missing as a result of a traumatic accident, cancer resection, or a congenital condition. These include insertion of an autogenous rib cartilage framework or a porous polymeric material into an expanded postauricular pocket. Reconstruction with rib cartilage has given good results, but requi...

Pteriid oysters (Pinctada maxima, Pinctada margaritifera, Pinctada albina, Pteria penguin), rock oysters (Saccostrea glomerata, Saccostrea cuccullata, Saccostrea echinata) and representatives of other taxa (Malleidae, Isognomonidae, Pinnidae, Mytilidae, Spondylidae, Arcidae) from the wild, and 4670 hatchery-reared P. maxima, from northern and Western Australia, were examined for parasites and d...

Using a moveable loudspeaker and an implanted microphone, we studied the sound pressure transformation of the external ears of 47 species of bats from 13 families. We compared pinna gain, directionality of hearing and interaural intensity differences (IID) in echolocating and non-echolocating bats, in species using different echolocation strategies and in species that depend upon prey-generated...

Directional properties of the sound transformation at the ear of four intact echolocating bats, Eptesicus fuscus, were investigated via measurements of the head-related transfer function (HRTF). Contributions of external ear structures to directional features of the transfer functions were examined by remeasuring the HRTF in the absence of the pinna and tragus. The investigation mainly focused ...