Photo credit: Zen Chung from Pexels by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition On June 10, our noise colleague Jan Mayes presented a paper at the 180th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America titled “Personal Audio System Use Can Harm Auditory Health." I was co-author, and participated in a press conference organized by
by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist A recent article about the hearing loss crisis among musicians reports hearing loss as every musician’s worst nightmare and as devastating for a musician as losing a hand. Many professional musicians have permanent hearing problems from not protecting their hearing until after chronic tinnitus or distortion and muffling hearing
Photo credit: Rob Knight licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist What is the worst noise or noises for you? Mine range from opera to loud aircraft flying over my house. But the consensus on social media is that the iPhone alarm is the worst noise ever created by humankind. I beg
Photo credit: Michael Burns licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist Police in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, are targeting loud vehicles with Project NoiseMaker. The project was launched in 2020 to crack down on excessive vehicle noise from illegally modified exhaust and emission systems or mufflers. Fines range up
Photo credit: UGA CAES/Extension licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist How loud are robot mowers? A New York Times article on reducing pollution emissions discusses increased focus on landscaping equipment like robot mowers to replace hazardous gas or fossil-fuel powered landscaping equipment. Jamie Banks, president of the nonprofit Quiet Communities,
Photo credit: Chuck Kardous, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist If I had $1 for every time I see an article incorrectly state that 85 decibels (dB) is “safe” for auditory health, I would be rich. It’s especially frustrating to read in a musicradar.com article with a
Photo credit: Sound On from Pexels by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist (Retired) It’s encouraging to see a recent university news article on the danger of hearing damage from personal listening with earbuds or headphones. Unfortunately, it shares the myth that our ears adapt to loud volumes. It’s true many people with noise-induced hearing damage
Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist (Retired) Flawed noise risk assessments shared in the media are dangerous for public health. This is the case for a recent Arizona Daily Sun article that recommends a 60/60 rule for personal listening with headphones. This rule suggests that personal listening at 60%
by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist (Retired) The World Health Organization has published the first ever World Report on Hearing. This report shows it's more cost-effective to invest in prevention and universal health coverage for ear and hearing care than to continue paying rising costs of untreated hearing loss related to impaired learning, social isolation,
Photo credit: Froggydarb licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 by Jan L. Mayes, MSc, Audiologist (Retired) Ever had trouble understanding what somebody was saying in a noisy background? Frogs have a similar problem hearing mating calls when all the pond frogs are chorusing. Using 15 years of data from the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, researchers discovered
