For most of the day, our ears and brains work together to tell us what direction the sounds we hear are coming from. A mother immediately looks in the direction of a crying child because her brain has localized the sound and can tell exactly where her child is. It happens so automatically she doesn’t even think about it. But the process of sound localization has been a mystery to researchers, until now.

We hear because sound waves strike our eardrums and cause them to vibrate. We are able to localize sound because the sound waves emanating from a certain place will not strike both eardrums at exactly the same time. The time interval between the sound waves striking one eardrum and then the other is referred to as the interaural timing difference (ITD). Scientists have known for a long time that our brains interpret the ITD to tell us a sound’s direction. But the baffling mystery has been how that ITD, only millionths of second long, can remain stable and consistent as the auditory signals travel through neurons on their way to the auditory cortex.

Researchers at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich just found the answer by studying the process in gerbils and mice. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, details multiple and very intricate, precisely timed processes that must work together to preserve the ITDs as they travel from the ear drum all the way to the brain’s processing center.

This “neuronal processing requires exceptional temporal precision,” according to the researchers. It’s exactly the kind of precision that points to the creative design of our God, not the random mutations of Darwinian natural selection.

Ambitious chimps lose again

Once again a court has ruled chimpanzees do not have the same rights as humans.

The animal rights organization Nonhuman Rights Project sued in 2013 to have the legal status of two chimps in New York, Kiko and Tommy, changed to that of persons with a legal right not to be imprisoned.

After the lower court refused to grant legal personhood to the chimps, the organization appealed to the state Supreme Court. The court ruled chimpanzees are not persons because they cannot submit to social responsibilities, perform legal duties, or be held accountable for their actions.

The Nonhuman Rights Project argued infants and comatose people are still considered persons even though they also lack responsibility. But the court aptly pointed out that “This argument ignores the fact that these are still human beings, members of the human community.”

Despite its ruling, the court called the Nonhuman Rights Project’s mission “laudable.” But Wesley J. Smith of The Discovery Institute called it an anti-human objective. “Whatever standards are established for the proper humane care of animals—and certainly, they should be established—must always flow from our duties as humans, not the fiction that animals are capable of possessing rights,” he wrote on the Evolution News and Science Today blog. —J.B.

CDC lifts South Florida’s Zika travel advisory

Good news for people living in, or traveling to, southern Florida this summer: Officials in Miami-Dade County have gone more than 45 days with no reports of new Zika cases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has lifted its travel advisory for the area. “That’s really exciting news,” Christine Curry, an OB-GYN at the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital told NPR. “Everybody has sort of exhaled.”

Overall, Zika appears to be declining throughout the Americas. Cases have dropped by 95 percent in Brazil and outbreaks across the Caribbean have subsided, NPR reported.

The CDC warns people traveling to Miami-Dade County should still take precautions because the virus may just be hiding right now. Officials recommend pregnant women and their partners, living in or traveling to the area, abstain from having sex or use condoms. They also urge continued Zika testing for pregnant women for up to eight more weeks. —J.B.

A drone just might save your life

Drones may get life-saving defibrillators to the scene of a cardiac arrest much faster than an ambulance can, according to a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. More than 350,000 people in the United States suffered cardiac arrest in non-medical settings last year, the American Heart Association reported. “Ninety percent of people who collapse outside of a hospital don’t make it. This is a crisis and it’s time we do something different to address it,” Clyde Yancy, a former American Heart Association president, said in a statement. —J.B.

Scientists create flu-fighting protein

Scientists have created a protein that binds hemagglutinin, a substance that allows a virus to fuse with a cell membrane and deposit its material inside the cell. The new protein prevented an influenza virus from infecting cells in a test culture and protected mice who got a heavy dose of the virus from getting sick. The protein is not yet ready for use as a treatment but may be useful in developing better treatments and diagnostic methods. “We call it flu glue, because it doesn’t let go,” David Baker the lead researcher told Science Magazine. —J.B.