Drag to turn the body. Markers show where motile cilia work.

01 / 06Where cilia live

You are lined with tiny oars

Almost every surface of you that has to stay clean is swept by microscopic hairs that move.

Cilia are hair-like structures that grow out of cells. Most of them are motile: they beat, eight to twenty times a second, always pushing the same way.

They line your nose and sinuses, your middle ear, your windpipe and the branching airways deep in your lungs, the fluid-filled ventricles of your brain, and the fallopian tubes. A sperm tail is built from the same parts.

And for about one week, long before you had a heart to put anywhere, a small patch of them did something entirely different — it told your body which side was left.

Nose, sinuses, airwaysSweep mucus, dust and germs up toward the throat.

Middle earKeep the eustachian tube draining. Blocked = glue ear.

Brain ventriclesEpendymal cilia stir cerebrospinal fluid.

Reproductive tract & embryoFallopian cilia, sperm tails — and the node that sets left from right.

Next → open one up and see what actually makes it move.

Cilia are hair-like structures that grow out of cells. Most of them are motile: they beat, eight to twenty times a second, always pushing the same way. They line your nose and sinuses, your middle ear, your windpipe and the branching airways deep in your lungs, the fluid-filled ventricles of your brain, and the fallopian tubes. A sperm tail is built from the same parts. And for about one week, long before you had a heart to put anywhere, a small patch of them did something entirely different — it told your body which side was left.

3D scene description: A translucent anatomical bust. Glowing markers sit on the sinuses, middle ear, windpipe and branching airways, brain ventricles and reproductive tract — every place motile cilia work.