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60% rule is not safe personal listening
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...
Quiet testimony: A visit to the Vietnam Memorial
Photo credit: Steven Zucker, Smarthistory co-founder licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition Hearing is so primal, so instinctive, you're often unconscious of sounds around you. Until they’re gone. A monument whose deep...
Universal design and DeafSpace guidelines
Image credit: Asmaa Hamed Abdel-Maksoud licensed under CC BY 4.0 by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition When I was a boy I was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s marvelous Guggenheim Museum to want to become an architect. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any talent...
Airplanes, helicopters far more annoying than other sources of noise
by Arline L. Bronzaft, Ph.D., Board of Directors, GrowNYC, and Co-founder, The Quiet Coalition In responding to an Federal Aviation Administration's study that found airplanes and helicopters are “far more annoying than other sources” of noise, Congressman Thomas...
NASA is developing a quiet airplane wing to reduce noise pollution
Photo credit: NASA's Langley Research Center by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition This report on NewAtlas discusses NASA research on a quiet airplane wing. The research uses a wind tunnel and a model airplane to determine the effects of new designs on noise....
Kathmandu struggles with horn noise
Photo credit: Volker Meyer from Pexels by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition As reported in The Annapurna Express, noise from horns is a problem in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley. I haven’t been to Nepal, but I think of it as an unspoiled, scenic country in the...
WHO’s first report on hearing promotes H.E.A.R.I.N.G. interventions
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...
Audubon Society reports birdsong was softer during lockdowns
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition The Audubon Society is probably the world’s leading birding and bird conservation organization, and its widely read magazine is a leading source of information about birds. This article by Daisy Yuhas in the Spring 2021...
Humans bring noise to Mars
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech by Arline L. Bronzaft, Ph.D., Board of Directors, GrowNYC, and Co-founder, The Quiet Coalition Am I surprised to read that NASA’s Mars rover, when it landed on Mars, brought “grinding, clanking, banging” to this planet? The answer is a...
How noise pollution is harming your health
Photo credit: Kathryn Archibald from Pexels by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition This 31-slide deck from MSN Lifestyle reviews how noise pollution is harming your health. One might quibble with how some of the facts are presented, but overall the information...
The pandemic is making birds more musical
Photo credit: Ashithosh U from Pexels by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition There have been many reports about how urban quiet caused by pandemic lockdowns allowed city dwellers to appreciate birds and their songs. This report in Salon about a Spanish study...
Could quiet “Skybrators” replace wind turbines?
Photo courtesy of Vortex Bladeless by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition If you thought gigantic “farms” of wind turbines and solar-cells were the state of the art in alternative energy, think again. Jillian Ambrose in The Guardian discusses several...