Noise pollution is making us oblivious to the sound of nature, says researcher

The tranquil chorus of the natural world is in danger of being lost to today’s generation as people screen out the noises that surround them, a senior US researcher warns.

Rising levels of background noise in some areas threaten to make people oblivious to the uplifting sounds of birdsong, trickling water, and trees rustling in the wind, which can often be heard even in urban centres, said Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist at the US National Park Service.

The problem was exacerbated by people listening to iPods through their earphones instead of tuning in to the birds and other sounds of nature that can easily be drowned out by traffic, music and others noises, he said.

 Yosemite national park in California where noise pollution is increasing. Photograph: Alamy

'A great silence is spreading over the natural world'

“This learned deafness is a real issue,” Fristrup told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose. “We are conditioning ourselves to ignore the information coming into our ears.”

“This gift that we are born with – to reach out and hear things hundreds of metres away, all these incredible sounds – is in danger of being lost through a generational amnesia,” he said.

“There is a real danger, both of loss of auditory acuity, where we are exposed to noise for so long that we stop listening, but also a loss of listening habits, where we lose the ability to engage with the environment the way we were built to,” he added.

For the past 10 years, the US National Park Service has recorded sound levels at more than 600 sites across the US, including Yosemite in California, Yellowstone and Denali in Alaska. Not one was unaffected by some form of noise from human activity, be it over-flying aircraft, motorbikes, motorboats, or tour buses.

Yellowstone National park, Lewis Lake Photograph: Cavan Images/Cavan Images/Cavan Images/Cor

Fristrup’s team combined the sound levels recorded from national parks with similar data from urban settings to create a model of noise levels across the US. They predict that noise pollution is growing faster than the US population, and more than doubles every 30 years.

“It’s not surprising people are putting on earphones or even noise cancelling earphones to try and create a quieter or more congenial environment,” he said.

“As you raise background sound levels it has the same effect on your hearing that fog would have on your vision. Instead of having this expansive experience of all the sounds around you, you are aware of only a small area around you,” he said. “Even in most of our cities there are birds and things to appreciate in the environment, and there can be very rich natural choruses to pay attention to. And that is being lost.”

People quickly become accustomed to changes in their environments, including rising noise levels, and over time, Fristrup fears that we will accept far worse environmental conditions than we should, and forget how much quieter the world could be. “If finding peace and quiet becomes difficult enough, many many children will grow up without the experience, and I think it’s a very real problem,” he said.

The warning came as other scientists reported beneficial health effects from listening to natural sounds. Speaking at the same meeting, Derrick Taff, a social scientist at Pennsylvania State University, described preliminary experiments which suggest that listening to recordings from national parks, of waterfalls, birdsong and wind, helped people recover from the stressful events.

In one experiment, Taff told participants who visited his lab to give an impromptu talk that would be judged by researchers standing behind a one-way mirror. Measurements of their heart rate and the stress hormone, cortisol, before and after the speech, found that people calmed down faster when they listened to nature recordings than when the same audio tracks were interspersed with sounds from road traffic, aeroplanes, and even normal conversation.

“We know that natural sounds are very important to people. They are some of the main reasons people visit protected areas. They want to hear the natural quiet, the birdsong, and the wind and water,” Taff said. “We may be losing this as people are listening to the iPods all the time, but I do believe that the public is appreciative of these sounds. My advice is to go to your protected areas and experience what you are missing.”

Why natural sounds might be calming to people is unclear, but Fristrup speculates that over millions of years of evolution, we may have come to associate the more tranquil sounds of the natural world with safety. “I suspect there’s something about these intact soundscapes that reminds our ancestral brains of a place that’s safe, where there’s no sense of a predator nearby, and that these more cluttered soundscapes are problematic for us because we know we’ve lost that surveillance capability,” he said.

Info from The Guardian 

The sound of silence: is cutting out noise the answer to a stress-free life?

Written by Poppy Szkiler

More than half of us feel that noise in the workplace affects our performance, while the constant onslaught of sound in our daily lives can damage our health 

‘Because we can’t see it, it’s easy to overlook the serious impact that noise can have on our health.’ 

We all know the importance of a little peace and quiet, but how often do we actually manage to escape the noise and get a moment of silence?

Peace is a precious commodity in a world where persistent noise has become part of the daily commute. We are surrounded by sound; from angry car horns to relentless beats escaping from other people’s headphones, and loudly spinning washing machines.

Sound is my family business. My grandfather John Connell OBE founded the Noise Abatement Society in 1959, after lobbying the Noise Abatement Act in parliament. My mother, Gloria Elliott, is now the chief executive of the charity. I founded Quiet Mark in 2012: an award for household tools, appliances and vehicles that reduce noise output but maintain high performance.

Because we can’t see it, it’s easy to overlook the serious impact that noise can have on our health. The World Health Organisation reports that 40% of Europe’s population is exposed to noise levels in excess of 55dB at night: a level that disturbs sleep, concentration and productivity, raises blood pressure and increases incidences of heart disease.

When the department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) and Quiet Mark surveyed 2,000 visitors to our Quiet House at the Ideal Home Show, 76% felt that the quality of their home life is affected by noise. A further 61% felt that noise in the workplace adversely affects how well they perform.

Photograph: Getty Images

Why is silence so important?

Silence is liberating. Thinking decisions through from beginning to end with no distractions is something I try to do for an hour each morning. Taking time out actually helps me to stay peaceful despite the demands of the rest of the day. Creativity flows and decisions download effortlessly. It can be a comfort in challenging times and a special way to solve problems.

A recent YouGov and Mental Health Foundation survey reported that 29% of people are stressed; while 24% suffer from anxiety and 17% from depression.

Of the 2,000 British adults surveyed, nearly half of workers struggle to switch off after work, and that nearly two thirds of people would be likely to take part in activities that reduce stress if given the option.

Sitting quietly could be the key, whether that’s at home before breakfast or with our work colleagues on the 14th floor of the office. Meditation has been shown to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain and improve sleep. Silence improves our health.

The power of silence has been embraced by the medical profession in recent years as a way of reducing stress and combating depression and anxiety. The NHS now, in some instances, prescribes the ancient art of meditation and mindfulness to patients when once they may have prescribed anti-depressants. Mindfulness has become the new buzzword for peace and quiet. Through the process of meditation patients are encouraged to be silent.

Mindfulness is entering the mainstream at a rapid rate. There’s an all party parliamentary group looking at the benefits of bringing mindfulness into public policy, while global companies such as Goldman Sachs and Google are offering it to their employees.

Taking time to be quiet forces us to think truthfully about ourselves and others in real time, to find answers beyond ourselves. It can be humbling but deeply rewarding. As uncomfortable as that may be, when we face up to reality we connect with who we really are and heal in that place.

Sometimes it may be impossible to get away from a ringing iPhone, a noisy work colleague or an overcrowded tube. But we do have the choice to put down the phone, step away from the computer, slow down and enjoy benefits of quietness.

Source: The Guardian 

Stop irritating chatter with speech-jammer!

If “shhhh” doesn’t work, the Speech Jammer might. This device renders chatterers speechless! Who knows, the Speech Jammer may one day find its way into classrooms and debates. This device created by Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada won the 2012 Ig Nobel prize in acoustics.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

The Speech Jammer uses our own speaking to silence us. For the average person, speaking requires us to hear ourselves. If that feedback becomes distorted, the person slows down and then stops talking.

The Speech Jammer records a person’s voice and plays it back with a slight time delay (a few hundred milliseconds). This feedback of hearing your words again, slightly after you’ve said them, is so disruptive that it renders you speechless. Perhaps, with practice, one might be able to overcome the speech jammer and continue speaking, but to the best of our knowledge, it hasn’t been done yet. Kurihara and Tsukada have posted a YouTube video of their Speech Jammer in action, which you can see below.

The speech jammer is composed of a directional microphone, a time delay integrated circuit, and a directional speaker to play the sound back. All of the components are well known, but the novelty stems from how they are used together.

For further information about the physics behind the Speech Jammer, please visit Physics Central.

T-shirt transforma ruído em electricidade (ideal para levar a um festival)

Dois anos depois de ter desenvolvido umas eco-galochas que ajudavam a carregar telemóveis e outros gadgets, a britânica Orange voltou à carga com um novo dispositivo que promove a energia limpa: uma t-shirt que transforma os ruídos em electricidade.

O dispositivo utiliza a tecnologia de filmes piezoeléctricos, normalmente encontrados em altifalantes modernos, para captar o som. A energia sonora passa por uma compressão, com cristais de quartzo, e é transformada em electricidade.

Baptizada de “Sound Charge”, esta t-shirt foi desenvolvida com a ajuda de especialistas em energias renováveis e vem equipada com uma bateria, que armazena a energia. Depois, esta energia pode ser utilizada para carregar os telemóveis e outros gadgets.

De acordo com a Exame Brasil, a tecnologia capta ruídos a partir de 80 decibéis, aproximadamente o barulho de uma rua movimentada. Ainda assim, os locais ideais para a sua utilização são os concertos e espectáculos de música, onde o som é mais alto e, consequentemente, a quantidade de energia gerada também.

Segundo os criadores, quem passar dois dias num festival de música pode obter energia suficiente para carregar até dois telemóveis ou um smartphone. 

Informação retirada de Green Savers

Negative Effects of Noise Pollution

Many studies have been conducted to study the effects of noise pollution on health and wellness, and the results have shown that noise pollution can negatively impact you in the following ways:

Productivity

We all know that noise can be distracting, and research proves this. One study examined children exposed to airport noise and found that their reading ability and long-term memory was impaired. Those working in noisy office environments have also been found to be less cognitively motivated, and to have higher stress levels, according to a Cornell University study.

Health

Perhaps the most serious problem created by sound pollution is the impact it has on our health. Because sound pollution can trigger the body’s stress response, one of its major health effects ischronic stress and the high levels of stress hormones that go with it. As a result, noise pollution has also been linked with health problems such asheart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. 

It’s also been linked with musculoskeletal problems, as a Cornell University study on office noise found that those working in noisy office environments can also be less likely to ergonomically adjust their workstations for comfort, which can contribute to physical problems. Noise pollution can also impact sleep quality by preventing sleep and disrupting sleep cycles. And, perhaps most significantly, because chronic stress can lower your immunity to all disease, noise pollution is a general threat to health and wellness.

What can you do to protect yourself from chronic stress? This article on reducing the effects of noise pollution has some important ideas for you.

Info at Stress.About.Com

Audição e ecolocalização

Os animais ouvem bem?
Respondemos instintivamente a esta questão: "Claro!" ou "muito melhor do que os seres humanos". Em alguns casos, isto é verdade. Com as suas orelhas longas, um feneco pode ouvir insetos que se move debaixo do solo. Uma capacidade prática para este animal, cuja visão é consideravelmente subdesenvolvida. Já os lobos são mestres na arte de localizar as suas presas seguindo o ruído que estas produzem.  Quem tem um cão sabe que este vai saltar com a chegada de uma pessoa familiar, muito antes de que ela toque a campainha. Alguns cães são mesmo capazes de reconhecer o som do motor do carro do seu dono.

Mas a capacidade de ouvir não é igual entre as diferentes espécies do reino animal. As aranhas e cobras passam a vida inteira num silêncio quase total. Percebem os sons de uma maneira diferente: o corpo da cobra capta as vibrações sonoras através do solo e a aranha sabe que algo acontece quando as vibrações atingem os pêlos das suas patas. Alguns mamíferos, como os morcegos e os golfinhos usam a ecolocalização para se orientar. Trata-se de uma capacidade para deteta a posição e/ou distância de objetos ou animais através da emissão de ondas ultrassónicas e análise do tempo gasto no regresso à fonte sobre a forma de eco.

Há pelo menos um homem que foi capaz de dominar esta técnica. O norte-americano Daniel Kish perdeu a visão na infância como resultado de um cancro. Ele aprendeu a orientar-se no espaço através da emissão de sons e interpretação do seu eco. E mesmo que já tenha perdido alguns dentes e esfolado joelhos, ele gosta de andar de bicicleta. Kish fundou uma organização chamada World Access for the Blind, que visa, entre outros, para ensinar um máximo de cegos a "ver" com os ouvidos.

How To Reduce Noise Pollution and Its Negative Effects

Noise pollution can negatively impact the body in significant ways, including elevated blood pressure, impaired cognitive functioning, and other effects of chronic stress. The following are effective strategies you can use to limit the negative impact of noise pollution and safeguard your health and happiness.

Limit The Noise

Your first line of defense against noise pollution is to do what you can to control your environment, and limit the noise that enters your space. The following are ways that you can limit environmental noise and blunt the effects of noise pollution: 

• Double-Paned Windows and Weather Stripping: If you live in a noisy city or near an airport, you can reduce noise in your home considerably by installing dual-paned windows, weather stripping, and even added insulation. As a bonus, these changes can also reduce your heating and cooling bills, and help the environment! 
• Reduce Workplace Noise: If you work in a noisy office, you may want to talk to your employer about taking steps to reduce office noise, which has been found to affect the health and productivity of workers. 
• Turn Off The T.V.: When you’re at home, a constant backdrop of television can have an effect on you as a distraction and potential stressor. 
• Make Bigger Changes: You may even consider moving or changing jobs if you experience significant levels of noise that you can’t reduce in other ways. It sounds like a drastic step, but considering the toll that a noisy environment can take on your health, it may be an option to consider. 

Info at Stress.About.Com