Professor Turi King discusses the results of a scientific paper about the evolution of hearing, which explores the combined impact of biological and environmental factors on how our ears respond to sound. The study was the brainchild of Dr. Patricia Balaresque who got really interested in the different factors, such as our sex or environment, that might have shaped our hearing sensitivity. This groundbreaking study, ‘Sex, and Environment Shape Cochlear Sensitivity in Human Populations Worldwide,’ is published in Scientific reports. It was led by Dr Patricia Balaresque at the Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research (CRBE) in Toulouse, supported by the Eco-Anthropology unit (EA-CNRS Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle / University of Paris) and the Toulouse Institute of Research in Computer Science (IRIT-CNRS / University of Toulouse) and others.