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

Mais de 40% da população portuguesa tem problemas de concentração devido ao ruído

Para assinalar o Dia Internacional da Consciencialização para o Ruído, a GAES-Centros Auditivos acaba de divulgar um estudo onde mostra como o ruído afecta o dia-a-dia das pessoas. Em Portugal, mais de 40% da população sofre de problemas de concentração associados ao ruído.

A perda auditiva é um problema de saúde que afecta já cerca de 1 milhão de portugueses e, a nível mundial, cerca de 120 milhões de pessoas têm já a sua audição afectada devido ao ruído.

O ruído em excesso - ou poluição sonora - é um grave problema que afecta toda a população, em especial a que vive nas grandes cidades. Todos os dias, são várias as actividades que expõem os cidadãos a níveis de poluição sonora altamente prejudiciais para a saúde. Sem se darem conta, estão expostos a situações em que o ruído ambiente é constante e com um elevado impacto nocivo para o seu bem-estar.

Cerca de 60% da população portuguesa vive com níveis de ruído acima do recomendado, que é de 55 decibéis, e cerca de 20% está exposta a barulho incomodativo (mais de 65 decibéis) de forma constante, o que se manifesta num forte impacto para a sua saúde, em especial de possíveis problemas auditivos.

Dulce Martins Paiva, directora-geral da GAES – Centros Auditivos Portugal, afirma: «Na GAES-Centros Auditivos temos a preocupação de alertar os nossos pacientes para o ruído que os rodeia, e que pode prejudicar a sua audição. Desenvolvemos este estudo em cinco países, onde estamos presentes – Portugal, Espanha, Venezuela, Equador e Chile – e os resultados foram muito semelhantes. As pessoas precisam de estar alertas para os níveis de ruído no seu dia-a-dia, e na GAES podemos ajudá-lo a combater possíveis problemas auditivos devido ao ruído.»

No dia 30 de Abril, a GAES-Centros Auditivos vai alertar a população para o excesso de ruído nas grandes cidades, e irá marcar presença em Coimbra com uma acção de rua na Avenida Central às 18:00.

Notícia de Diário Digital

If You Can't Eliminate The Noise Pollution... Reduce it!

If you can’t eliminate noise from your environment, you can actually create a healthier environment by replacing stress-inducing environmental sounds with more pleasing ones. For example, you can reduce the impact of airport or city noise with a white noise machine or 'sound spa'. They play sounds ranging from waterfalls to rain to babbling brooks to basic static, and these sounds mask the more jarring environmental noises that can distract you or negatively affect your sleep. They can also make it easier to meditate or practice visualization techniques.

Additionally, you can drown out distracting sounds from a noisy office environment or neighborhood with music from your iPod or stereo and enjoy the stress management and health benefits of music while lessening the impact of the other noise. This can also improve your mood, boost your immunity, calm your physiology, or energize you. While you’re really trading some sounds for others, the sounds of nature or music can be more soothing and better for your health.

Info from: Stress.about.com

Stress and Noise Pollution: How You May Be At Risk

What Is Noise Pollution?

Noise pollution can be defined as intrusive noise that disrupts, distracts, or detracts from regular functioning. And while people mainly think of noise pollution as a problem of the big cities, with the competing sounds of more people in a smaller space, noise pollution can also be found in suburban neighborhoods (in the form of leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and home construction) and even individual homes and offices at levels that can have a negative impact on your health and productivity.

Causes of Noise Pollution 

While there are many different sources of noise pollution, there are some main culprits that have been researched and found to have a negative impact on health. They include the following:

Airplanes—It’s been well-documented that noise pollution from airplanes has a significant negative impact on the health and wellbeing of those who live close to airports. This can include heart disease, high blood pressure and chronic stress. (About.com’s Environment Guide has more information on the effects of airports and noise pollution.)

Cars--One of the complaints of those who live in big cities or on busy streets is the disruption from the sounds of traffic. Interestingly, though, even low levels of traffic noise can be damaging to people, and traffic noise is one of the most commonly experienced contributors to noise pollution.

Workplace Noise—Most of us may think of loud assembly lines or construction sites when we think of noise pollution in the workplace, and while these examples definitely apply, regular offices are not immune. With more people packed into busy office spaces, office noise is a common complaint. Co-workers who talk, drum their fingers on the desk, or offer other distracting noises can decrease the productivity of those around them without realizing it.

Home Sound--Many people don’t think of their homes as ‘noisy’, but if there’s a lot of activity in the home, including a constantly running t.v., this overall noise level can actually be a threat to concentration and a cause of stress. In fact, children from more noisy homes do suffer ill effects from this type of sound pollution that include less cognitive growth, delayed language skills, increased anxiety, and impaired resilience, according to a Purdue University professor in a related press release.

Info at Stress.About.Com

Gare aux effets des baladeurs MP3 sur l'audition

Les baladeurs MP3 d'aujourd'hui ont envoyé le Walkman au rayon des antiquités: il est maintenant possible d'écouter de la musique de bonne qualité pendant des heures et à des volumes de son élevés. Souvent trop élevés. 

Et les spécialistes sont de plus en plus inquiets des conséquences néfastes pour l'audition des adolescents avec l'apparition de plus en plus précoce de baisse sensible de l'audition, que certains appellent même une «épidémie de troubles auditifs».

Un adolescent sur quatre est à risque d'une perte d'audition résultant directement de ses habitudes d'écoute avec son baladeur, affirme ainsi le Pr Chava Muchnik, de la Tel Aviv University au terme de son étude, publiée dans l'International Journal of Audiology. 

Près de 289 adolescents, entre 13 et 17 ans, ont participé à l'étude. Ils ont été interrogés sur leurs habitudes d'écoute avec leur iPod ou autre baladeur MP3. Et en particulier sur le niveau sonore et la durée d'utilisation. Dans un deuxième temps, le volume du son des baladeurs a été mesuré chez 74 adolescents dans un environnement calme puis dans un environnement bruyant. Les volumes mesurés ont servi à établir les risques potentiels pour l'audition des adolescents.

Près de 80 % des adolescents participants à l'étude utilisaient leur baladeur très régulièrement, 21 % d'entre eux l'écoutant de 1 à 4 heures, et 8 % s'en servant plus de 4 heures consécutivement.

«Dans 10 ou 20 ans, estime le Pr Muchnik, il sera trop tard et on verra que toute une jeune génération souffre de surdités partielles beaucoup plus tôt qu'attendu en fonction du vieillissement». Elle recommande ainsi que tous les pays adoptent, pour commencer, les normes européennes qui limitent à 100 décibels le volume maximal des iPod et des baladeurs MP3, dont certains, non «bridés», peuvent atteindre près de 130 décibels. Mais 100 dB, cela équivaut déjà au niveau acoustique d'une boîte de nuit. Et l'on sait qu'un risque pour l'oreille est déjà avéré à partir de 80 dB. Les spécialistes recommandent que des campagnes de prévention soient menées pour sensibiliser les enfants et les parents aux dangers de ces décibels.

Info sur Le Figaro SANTÉ

Sono, a noise cancelation and isolation device that sticks on your window

If you’re the sort that needs peace and quiet to get anything done, escaping the noise pollution of every day life — regardless of where you’re located — is no easy task. A new device that sticks onto your window, Sono, will not only cancel real-world noise, but isolate the noises you’d prefer to hear, if any.

You live in a corner apartment, and your one, meager window faces a beautiful, serene park. However, in front of that park is a major metropolitan road, host to loud traffic throughout the day. If not for the constant stream of cars and barking dogs, the soothing sounds of chirping birds and the wind rustling through trees would make its way across the street and into your bedroom. With Sono, you can stick the device right on your window, and fiddle with some settings to either cancel out noise entirely, or cancel out the specific noises that are drowning out the peaceful ones.

Sono it’s a concept created by Austrian industrial designer Rudolf Stefanich. Sono works by vibrating a window in a pattern counter to the vibrations caused by the ambient noise, essentially turning the surface into a noise-canceling speaker. During prototype testing, Sono’s transducer used active noise canceling to successfully lower the audio signal by 12 decibels — which would probably do a good job of blocking out quieter sounds in the 30-80 dB range, but you’d still definitely hear traffic and other loud sounds.

The device employs concentric broadband antenna rings, and can be charged through WiFi signals or the standard electric outlet, so your noise shield won’t unceremoniously lower in the middle of the night.

The strength of Sono is not that it can cancel out obnoxious ambient noises, but can still filter pleasant ambient noises through. So, not only can you still get the chirping birds and rustling leaves from that park across the street, but the sounds are natural — not some recreation on your phone that sounds very digital. Though Stefanich’s device is more of a concept than a tangible item, the theory behind the device was successfully tested with that aforementioned prototype, and it is a finalist for the James Dyson Award.

Info from Extreme Tech

O porquê dos arquitetos precisarem de usar os ouvidos

O nosso mundo cada vez mais barulhento está a corroer a nossa saúde mental. Julian Treasure estuda o som e aconselha empresas relativamente a como usá-lo melhor. É o presidente da Sound Agency, uma empresa que aconselha empresas por todo o mundo em como usar o som. Diz-nos para prestarmos atenção aos sons que nos rodeiam. Como é que eles nos fazem sentir: produtivos, nervosos, com energia?

Nesta Ted Talk, Treasure explica que devido a uma má acústica, os alunos em salas de aula perdem 50% do que os professores dizem, e pacientes em hospitais têm dificuldade em dormir porque continuamente se sentem stressados. Julian Treasure faz um apelo à ação dos designers e arquitetos para prestarem atenção à "arquitetura invisível" do som. 

Deixo-vos com outras duas Ted Talks do mesmo autor aqui (Sound Health in 8 steps) e aqui (5 ways to listen better).

Interesting facts about sound

The malleus, incus and stapes (otherwise known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup) are the smallest bones in the human body and are full size at birth.    All three together could fit on a penny. The whole area of the middle ear is no bigger than an M&M.    The cochlea (inner ear) is about the size of a pencil eraser.    The ear never stops working, even when people are asleep. The ear continues to hear sounds, but the brain shuts them out.    Ears are self-cleaning. Pores in the ear canal produce cerumen, or ear wax, and tiny hairs, called cilia, push the wax out of the ear.    Sound travels at the speed of 1130 feet per second, or 770 miles per hour.    A sonic boom occurs when an object breaks the speed of sound. The sound waves from behind and in front of the object crash into each other and create the boom.    Chuck Yeager was the first American pilot to travel faster than the speed of sound.    At 115 dB, a baby's cry is louder than a car horn.    In Africa, a tribe of people call Maabans live in such quiet that they can hear a whisper from across a baseball field, even when they are very old.    The hearing of a dog is more sensitive than humans. Dogs can hear much higher frequencies, which is why they respond to "silent" dog whistles. More than 28 million Americans have a hearing loss.    More than 1/3 of the U.S. population have a significant hearing impairment by age 65.    Approximately 2 million people are profoundly deaf.    One of every 1,000 infants is born totally deaf.    Sitting in front of the speakers at a rock concert can expose a person to 120 dB, which will begin to damage hearing in only 7-1/2 minutes.    It does not matter if you like the sounds you are exposed to. An orchestra playing Mozart at 120 dB will damage your hearing as quickly as Metallica playing at 120 dB.    Two out of three babies will have an ear infection before age 1.

 

Red Grapes, Red Wine Could Prevent Hearing Loss and Cognitive Decline

Studies linking red wine with numerous health benefits are not new, though neither are studies coming to opposite conclusions, admittedly. But in the last decade or so, we’ve seen numerous bodies of research indicating a wealth of potential benefits in an occasional or even regular glass of red wine. Recently, scientists with the Department of Otolarynology-Head & Neck Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital have found the active component within red wine and grapes, known as resveratrol, may help protect against both hearing loss and cognitive decline.

“Our latest study focuses on resveratrol and its effect on bioinflammation, the body’s response to injury and something that is believed to be the cause of many health problems including Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, aging, and hearing loss,” said the study’s lead author Michael D. Seidman, director of the Division of Otologic/Neurotologic Surgery.

The researchers looked at how resveratrol could protect against hearing loss and cognitive decline thought to be caused by cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), a “key to the inflammatory process”. They found that noise exposure caused an up-regulation of COX-2 while resveratrol inhibited COX-2 expression and actually reduced hearing loss caused by prolonged acoustic stimulation in rats.

“COX-2 levels are induced dramatically following noise exposure,” the study reads. “This increased expression may be a potential mechanism of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and a possibly mechanism of resveratrol’s ability to mitigate NIHL by its ability to reduce COX-2 expression.”

“We’ve shown that by giving animals resveratrol, we can reduce the amount of hearing and cognitive decline,” said Dr. Seidman. 

Resveratrol is found in most concentrated levels within the skin of red grapes, which is why it is found in red wine. While the benefits of red wine due to resveratrol are suspected to be many, critics warn against using red wine as a health food.

To that end, a study last fall by researchers with Rutgers University found that just two glasses of red wine each day can actually reduce brain cell production by up to 40%. They found that although motor skills and short-term associative learning were not affected by a blood alcohol level of .08 (the legal driving limit), brain cell production was.

What does this mean for you? It likely means that resveratrol has health benefits, but the alcohol in wine could negate those benefits if consumed in larger amounts. In other words, you can get your resveratrol from red grapes and even wine, but don’t continue to drink moderately if you’re concerned about the potential negative effects.

From Natural Society

Hearing protection - You're doing it wrong

How Old Are You Ears

Procedimento inovador nos EUA permite a uma criança surda de nascença ouvir pela primeira vez voz do pai

Há um video que está a emocionar milhões de pessoas em todo o mundo. Mostra o momento em que uma criança de três anos, surda desde a nascença, ouve pela primeira vez a voz do pai. Grayson Clamp é a primeira criança americana a receber um implante auditivo do tronco cerebral.

Notícia acedida em RTP.pt

Why you should wear ear protection

The Noise Shirt

The Noise Shirt is a machine washable, wirelessly rechargeable garment that measures ambient sound via an LED equalizer bar on the chest. 

An embedded microphone measures the environmental noise level and displays it as a vertical 5 step EQ bar, in which the top two lights represent noiselevels beyond recommended limits for hearing protection. A small lithium-polymer battery in the shirt contains a wireless recharging induction loop in the neck tab which, when conjoined with an inductive coil on the shirt's specially designed coat hanger, will recharge the shirt in about three hours. 

The next step is to add a mobile user interface to the device in order to access outside services and applications, giving it functionality beyond reminding everyone at the next Mudvayne show that they'll eventually be going deaf.

Info from EnGadget