Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Alice, I don't know if the science editor
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb,
Speaker 1: science writerer at how stuff works dot com. And uh,
Speaker 1: I have to ask, what's the most annoying sound for you? Personally?
Speaker 1: Most annoying sound has got to be my dad snoring.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Dad, but it's sure anyone snoring really, But
Speaker 1: I have this vision of going across the country and
Speaker 1: I think we're going on a college tour, and my
Speaker 1: dad and I shared a hotel room and he snored.
Speaker 1: He just snored so loudly. And I remember contemplating sleeping
Speaker 1: in the bathtub, although I never did. And this is
Speaker 1: really before I got familiar with all the different kinds
Speaker 1: of your plugs out there. Yeah, I want about um, Well,
Speaker 1: I I've had to be around some snoring people before,
Speaker 1: such as like I think, and I'm like some sort
Speaker 1: of like youth trip in in high school. I really
Speaker 1: tempted to ask if you're a snore, but I will not.
Speaker 1: I do not think I am a snore. If I
Speaker 1: am a snore, then people that have slept near me
Speaker 1: have been just amazingly polite in my entire life. It
Speaker 1: would really be a shocking revelation. Um. But but now
Speaker 1: that the noise, probably the noise that annoys me the
Speaker 1: most is anything in a movie theater that's not the
Speaker 1: movie like and I'm actually really like this wine. I
Speaker 1: never go to the theater because I'm just super picky
Speaker 1: about this, Like if if I have to hear somebody
Speaker 1: eat popcorn, I get kind of irritated, even though people
Speaker 1: are like popcorn is have two I have to Like
Speaker 1: people who don't even like popcorn go to the movie
Speaker 1: theater and they feel like they have to eat popcorn,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm trying to listen to it, like
Speaker 1: you know, some heartfelt scene or it's like something really violent, disturbing,
Speaker 1: and here's somebody like chomping down or it's nachos and
Speaker 1: things like that much. And then there's the whole you know,
Speaker 1: anything else too, like cell phones, chitter chatter. It just
Speaker 1: it gets to me. I have to confess. When you
Speaker 1: first asked me if when we were talking about this
Speaker 1: podcast with the most annoying sound in the world, was
Speaker 1: was thinking about the movie dumb and dumber. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So moving on to noise pool. Basically we're talking about
Speaker 1: noise pollution, and a lot of noise pollution, at least
Speaker 1: as far as it concerns humans. Does come down to
Speaker 1: sounds that are annoying and disruptive that are allowed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I keep thinking back to Um, there's this awesome
Speaker 1: segment on this British comedy show called look Around You,
Speaker 1: which is a parody of science shows for young people. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's great if you get if you get a chance,
Speaker 1: you know, do like a Google or YouTube search on
Speaker 1: the name Leonard Hatred and I'll take you right to this.
Speaker 1: This guy's like he comes on the show and he's
Speaker 1: like talking about how this is a fictional character about
Speaker 1: how his parents snored when he's a child and they
Speaker 1: lived by Heathrow Airport. Then they moved because it was
Speaker 1: too noisy, but they moved into a house that was
Speaker 1: next to Gatwick Airport. Uh. Then he left, he got married,
Speaker 1: he moved to the countryside and then they built this
Speaker 1: somebody build an apatoire directly across the street from the house,
Speaker 1: so he had to listen to the sounds of cattle
Speaker 1: being slaughtered all the time. And to top that off,
Speaker 1: his wife and the sister in law that lived there
Speaker 1: with him suffered from a condition that caused them to
Speaker 1: scream uncontrollably. So he developed this spray called silence with
Speaker 1: a P and if he would spray it onto his ears,
Speaker 1: and he admitted that it contained quote liquid skin, So
Speaker 1: we'd spray it on and it would just like cause
Speaker 1: skin to temporarily grow over his ears, so he couldn't
Speaker 1: hear anything. He just had a solid ear structure, just
Speaker 1: a solid like fleshy knob for an ear. Yeah, no
Speaker 1: nifty ear canal all that stuff gone. It's pretty grass, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty gross. Mr Hatred. So so yeah, let's talk about
Speaker 1: um about noises and how how these different noises and
Speaker 1: different levels of noise affect human health. Let's take it
Speaker 1: down and let's break it down to decibels. All right,
Speaker 1: So near total silence, you're gonna have zero decibles gone on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's an example, got it all right? Next, Well, we're assuming,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're assuming that listeners are listening to us. Well,
Speaker 1: I assume that I demand it. Actually, if you don't
Speaker 1: have time to like listen to us, and like a
Speaker 1: closed environment, and then come on, what are you in
Speaker 1: your car? Pull over? What are you doing? Now? We
Speaker 1: have a whisper, so give us a whisper. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever heard you whisper. Give us a whisper. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to the podcast. That that would be
Speaker 1: kind of a whisper. Right, so running roughly around fifteen decibels.
Speaker 1: And then we get into a normal conversation, right like
Speaker 1: we're having now, and that's what So sometimes we get excited,
Speaker 1: so it escalates a little, but like just normal conversation,
Speaker 1: that will be sixty decipls. Okay, vacuum cleaner, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: going to be what do you think you're robotic? The
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner does probably around seventy decibles? Is it loud?
Speaker 1: I would think it might be a little it's a
Speaker 1: little quieter, but the roomboat tends I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: still you can't sleep with it running, you know, it
Speaker 1: still sounds like a vacuum cleaner. Doubtless there is somebody
Speaker 1: who does sleep with their vacuum cleaner running, maybe like
Speaker 1: it's a time saver. Well, I mean, I guess by
Speaker 1: nature is supervise it and actually I would be a
Speaker 1: little you know, hesitant to let that thing have free
Speaker 1: run of the house. So your average passenger car going
Speaker 1: sixty that's going to be about seventy seven decibles. Yep,
Speaker 1: somebody hanks a horn, you've got a hundred and ten decibles,
Speaker 1: all right, So we're ratching up the levels. So now
Speaker 1: we're heading to a rock concert. What do we got now,
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty decibels fire off a gun or a
Speaker 1: light of firecracker hundred and forty deciples. And if you're
Speaker 1: you know, within close proximity to a jet taking off,
Speaker 1: you're looking at a hundred and fifty decibles and a
Speaker 1: ruptured ear drum. That's great. So yeah, that the basically
Speaker 1: breaks down to any sound above eighty five decibels can
Speaker 1: cause hearing loss, and the loss is related to both
Speaker 1: the power of the sound um and the length of
Speaker 1: exposure and like the proximity to it, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, it's a difference between having your
Speaker 1: head next to a jackhammer, hearing a jackhammer, you know,
Speaker 1: across the street, and having to work in like a
Speaker 1: you know, a sandwich shop next to the jackhammer all
Speaker 1: day long, right, which is why. Um, you know, agencies
Speaker 1: like osha I regulate a noise exposure on the job. Um.
Speaker 1: So as an example of this, if you have to
Speaker 1: raise your voice to be heard, you're probably dealing with
Speaker 1: noise of about eighty five decibles. Yeah. So ye, I
Speaker 1: think back to the last time you were at a
Speaker 1: at a club or at a rock concert, etcetera. You
Speaker 1: were if you were having a shout to be heard,
Speaker 1: then you know you were in a pretty noisy environment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when you're talking about eight hours of about ninety decibles,
Speaker 1: then you were talking about ear damage. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty decibls like the gun shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not waiting eight hours at that point. At that point,
Speaker 1: it's immediate, immediate damage and actual pain. Yeah. Like did
Speaker 1: you ever see Copland? I don't think I did see that.
Speaker 1: That was like there was the movie where Sylvester salone.
Speaker 1: You played like a cop and you're like put on
Speaker 1: weight for it and all, and like he has like
Speaker 1: hearing damage in one ear and like the villain of
Speaker 1: the piece. So I think it is Harvey Kitel, Like
Speaker 1: they're they rough them up at one point and they
Speaker 1: like fire a gun next to his other ear to like,
Speaker 1: you know, because they're bad guys. So yeah, so that
Speaker 1: would be a situation where you would have immediate hearing
Speaker 1: damage and pain in the ear. Yeah. And even when
Speaker 1: a noise isn't actively deafening you, you can have a
Speaker 1: health effects like of course hearing loss. You know, you
Speaker 1: can disturb your sleep, you can have cardiovascular problems, um,
Speaker 1: and you can even affect your social behavior. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: actually ran across some really cool studies because there's something
Speaker 1: a lot of people looked into, um usually with the
Speaker 1: advent of iPods. I should think that there's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of money pouring into research on hearing loss and
Speaker 1: stuff like tonitas um. With the you know, just ubiquitous
Speaker 1: nous of iPods. That actually is what you guys are
Speaker 1: probably listening to us now, or many of you at least.
Speaker 1: So I'm hesitant to I'm not, you know, knocking on iPods,
Speaker 1: but a lot of us just listen to them that
Speaker 1: are levels that are way too loud. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: part of it too is because it's like you'll be
Speaker 1: listening you're on the train, right, so there's like a
Speaker 1: noisy train sound. But and then there's also some like annoying, um,
Speaker 1: you know, chatter or like, you know, whatever is else
Speaker 1: is going on the train. You want to block that out,
Speaker 1: so you crank up the headphones a little and uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, so that it all sort of adds up.
Speaker 1: So to talk to me about some of these studies, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the Department of um Psychiatry at the University of
Speaker 1: London conducted an in depth study in two thousand three
Speaker 1: and they came to some interesting conclusions. They said, the
Speaker 1: risk of developing mental or physical illness due to environmental
Speaker 1: noise is actually pretty small. You know, you're probably not
Speaker 1: going to be driven completely crazy, and this is of
Speaker 1: course ruling out again actual light damage to your hearing.
Speaker 1: But they said that part of the problem is the
Speaker 1: interaction between people, noise and ill health is a complex relationship.
Speaker 1: Humans are are not usually passive recipients of noise exposure,
Speaker 1: and they developed these coping strategies to reduce the impact
Speaker 1: or they just you know, they move away from the noise.
Speaker 1: Have you heard about situations in which prisoners are subject
Speaker 1: to constant noise in a modification of torture? I suppose, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that sounds horrible, horrible. It's like when they
Speaker 1: were trying to get uh noriega okay out of his compound,
Speaker 1: remember in Panama, I don't remember this, and they were
Speaker 1: like pumping rock music, you know. Or actually there there
Speaker 1: was like a recent you know document that that came
Speaker 1: out talking about you know, different music that was used
Speaker 1: as a an instrument of interrogation um or you know,
Speaker 1: torture on on Guantanamo and going Tuantamo Bay inmates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. Yeah, and like and it's like
Speaker 1: some like I think like Trent some Trent Resiner's music
Speaker 1: for n inch Nails came up and he was like
Speaker 1: legitimately offended, you know, because you create this art and
Speaker 1: uh and then somebody's gonna use your art to inflict
Speaker 1: you know, pain on somebody, psychological pain. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: that one of the factors here is that people can
Speaker 1: cope with with different levels of noise pollution and they
Speaker 1: can move away from it, well, assuming they can move
Speaker 1: away from it, right, So there's an element of choice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then but and then a lot of it comes
Speaker 1: down to how it affects your your quality of life,
Speaker 1: all right, you know you have again it's like hearing,
Speaker 1: there's the hearing lots. Yeah, but it also disturbs your sleep. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have to listen to the jackhammer
Speaker 1: all night or or you know, if you have some
Speaker 1: sort of your you know, you live next to an
Speaker 1: airport or something. Um, not getting enough sleep can severely
Speaker 1: harm your ability to function during the day. In children,
Speaker 1: chronic aircraft noise exposure has been found to impair reading, comprehension,
Speaker 1: and long term memory. Yeah, and maybe associated with raised
Speaker 1: blood pressure from you know, further research pending on that
Speaker 1: this and h Then there's a two thousand five study
Speaker 1: from a team of Spanish researchers and they found that
Speaker 1: in urban areas, households are willing to pay approximately four
Speaker 1: euros per descibel per year for noise reduction. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting to think in terms of this, like,
Speaker 1: you know, your ability to move away from it. It's
Speaker 1: kind of becomes a privilege, Yeah, or at least in
Speaker 1: some places depends on how you know an urban the
Speaker 1: urban environment happens to work. And in two thousands seven, UH,
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization Noise Environmental Burden on Disease Working
Speaker 1: Group published findings on the health related effects of noise
Speaker 1: for Europeans and They concluded about two percent of Europeans
Speaker 1: suffer severely um disturbed sleep and fiftcent suffer severe annoyance
Speaker 1: due to environmental noise. And that's to find as community
Speaker 1: noise emitted from like road traffic, trains, aircraft flying over. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: when I was younger, I lived in the city. I
Speaker 1: lived in a big city for a long time, almost
Speaker 1: a decade. I went to college and then lived there
Speaker 1: for a couple of years after in the city. And
Speaker 1: it's weird to me because I am really sensitive to noise.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you were to come visit us in
Speaker 1: our Atlanta office, Um, you know, even the editorial department,
Speaker 1: you can kind of hear pin drop. A lot of
Speaker 1: the other departments around house stuff, works, dot com. You
Speaker 1: a little noise, you're a little bit more rambunctious, especially
Speaker 1: when the development guys were around and they were doodle
Speaker 1: all sorts of crazy stuff. But editorial department tends to
Speaker 1: be a little quieter. Yeah, people are. But anyway, point
Speaker 1: in the story is that it was it was just
Speaker 1: surprising to me. I would have thought that I would
Speaker 1: have gotten used to noise exposure living in urban environment
Speaker 1: for a period of a couple of years when the
Speaker 1: in laws come in to visit. Um they are there, Uh,
Speaker 1: they always comment on the sound of airplanes flying overhead
Speaker 1: right from the airport in back of your house. Do
Speaker 1: you guys have an airport in back of your house. Well, no,
Speaker 1: but there's an airport, you know, in the area, like
Speaker 1: we have the huge airport in the Atlanta area, and
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's not in the backyard. And I did
Speaker 1: not even think about it. But but then they come
Speaker 1: and stay in They're like, oh, I don't see, got
Speaker 1: you deal with this because they're you know, all the
Speaker 1: planes flying overhead and I have to actually think, stop
Speaker 1: and think, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess there
Speaker 1: are planes flying overhead kind of constantly. Yeah. Same here
Speaker 1: we have a train that runs through the middle of
Speaker 1: the town and I really don't notice it. And then
Speaker 1: again with with the parents staying, they're like, oh, that
Speaker 1: tram was so loud last time. So again it comes
Speaker 1: down to, you know, you can grow accustomed to certain
Speaker 1: levels of noise or figure out how to cope with it. Right,
Speaker 1: And we're not the only life forms that are affected
Speaker 1: by noise. Pollution of other animals have been a little
Speaker 1: selfish so far in this podcast ecocentrics, let's talk about
Speaker 1: some animals and ways in which they deal with noise pollution. Okay,
Speaker 1: a lot of us have heard about stuff affecting whales
Speaker 1: and um all sorts of marine creatures, although we don't
Speaker 1: really know a lot about how noise pollution affects fish.
Speaker 1: That's what that's one interesting factory about. We're researching this.
Speaker 1: But for whales, noise pollution can mean a couple of
Speaker 1: things as a way to cope. It can mean that
Speaker 1: they call louder to be heard above the ruckus. Again,
Speaker 1: it's like you're the rock concert and having to speak louder.
Speaker 1: They're having to do the same thing in the ocean
Speaker 1: to communicate or use their echolocation. Yeah. Actually, uh the
Speaker 1: blogger over Discovery News, Jennifer Viegas cover this um in
Speaker 1: in July two articles and the title was whales scream
Speaker 1: over noise pollution And that's sort of a disconcerting idea
Speaker 1: of whales screaming that we're causing them to scream. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great headline because screaming whales that's like immediate outrage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. And uh So there's also research that North Atlantic. Right,
Speaker 1: whales and other whale species are are in fact engaging
Speaker 1: in this behavior to be heard above stuff like commercial
Speaker 1: ships and other man made noises in the ocean. Uh.
Speaker 1: A lot of that is sonar or offshore drilling stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, we we went into some of this
Speaker 1: in our podcast about beach whales. That's right, because that's
Speaker 1: one of the things they've been looking into, like navy vessels, um,
Speaker 1: interfering with their their echolocation and driving them off course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's particularly be troublesome when the man made noises
Speaker 1: are occurring in the same frequencies as the whales calls, right,
Speaker 1: because that's gonna start affecting stuff, um, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's migration or mating or just generally whales communicating with
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, it's like, you know, you get an airplane,
Speaker 1: they ask you to turn off your cell phone and
Speaker 1: what have you during a key parts of the flight
Speaker 1: so you don't interfere with anything. It's kind of like that.
Speaker 1: We're just not very considerate, Like when it comes to
Speaker 1: us going out in the ocean, we're the the jerk
Speaker 1: that won't turn your cell phone off. It's important to
Speaker 1: note that Noise pollution can also come from natural sources
Speaker 1: like earthquakes for example. So what's the deal with whales?
Speaker 1: I mean, is it easier to constantly shout or just
Speaker 1: go quiet? Well, I mean, we get tired of shouting
Speaker 1: in whales, I imagine do too, So shouting can be
Speaker 1: this huge energy expenditure, so sometimes they will wind up
Speaker 1: going quiet. And what does that mean. It means that
Speaker 1: we're never going to know what's being said. And whale
Speaker 1: calls or songs like such as that of the male humpbacks, right,
Speaker 1: they engage in these beautiful whale songs. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, it's like the dude with slide
Speaker 1: hearing loss that goes to a noisy restaurant and you
Speaker 1: can't really hear anybody, so it just doesn't say anything.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's out on the whole conversation you
Speaker 1: could be getting with that guy, right, And it's not
Speaker 1: just in the in the oceans, in a marine environment,
Speaker 1: it's also on land. I mean, like we were talking
Speaker 1: about before, you have aircraft and traffic noises doing a
Speaker 1: lot to contribute to really noisy environment and you think, okay, well,
Speaker 1: well just you know, take it over to Yellowstone or
Speaker 1: I'll go to some national park and you know, I
Speaker 1: won't be affected by noise pollution. But again, just as
Speaker 1: we were talking about with light pollution, you can't really
Speaker 1: escape the noise there. Yeah. I actually was in Yosemite
Speaker 1: recently on vacation. Yeah. And uh, and it really doesn't
Speaker 1: like you. It's it's interesting to go there. And like
Speaker 1: you you hear these stories about how the park it
Speaker 1: used to be, like they used to do this thing
Speaker 1: called the firefall, where they like like have burning embers
Speaker 1: and go over the side of this this cliff. Or
Speaker 1: then they would do stuff like like the park rangers
Speaker 1: would would feed up trash from the um leftovers from
Speaker 1: the restaurants directly to the bears so that everybody could watch.
Speaker 1: And uh and and and and like we we're laughing
Speaker 1: now and sort of you know, outrage now. But they,
Speaker 1: you know, they like to point out that, you know,
Speaker 1: this was considered okay then, and uh, you know, like
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, this was this was perfectly fine. Thirty
Speaker 1: years from now, who knows that, you know, people will
Speaker 1: look back and say, I can't believe they let people
Speaker 1: drive cars into these places, the noisy vehicles or they
Speaker 1: let them have a golf course, you know. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you go into even these these pristine environments, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in places where nature is the you know,
Speaker 1: the center attraction that you still you know, there's a
Speaker 1: sound of construction or the sound of you know, a
Speaker 1: truck bringing you know, groceries up the mountain. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about a couple of the animals that are being
Speaker 1: affected by noise pollution, such as the great tits persis
Speaker 1: major they're singing at at higher frequencies. Then you also
Speaker 1: have female gray tree frogs and those are exposed to
Speaker 1: the sound of passing traffic, so it takes them takes
Speaker 1: them longer to locate and find males. Uh. European tree
Speaker 1: frogs on the other end, are just calling less overall. Um.
Speaker 1: Then you also get the sound of overhead aircraft can
Speaker 1: disturb the behavior of harlequin ducks as well as goats.
Speaker 1: Remind me again what a harlequin duck is. It's a
Speaker 1: duck that is frequently used as in it for entertainment
Speaker 1: purposes in the courts of Europe. That's just a variety
Speaker 1: of duck. Um. Yeah. And then you have stuff like,
Speaker 1: of course the greater stage grouse and mules deer. They're
Speaker 1: steering clear of noise producing oil and gas developments. And
Speaker 1: it can also affect the ability of a lot of
Speaker 1: animals like owls and bats to find and hunt their prey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these guys depend on unsound to find their food, so
Speaker 1: they'll have the laboratory studies have shown that if they
Speaker 1: encounter areas where there's a lot of noise, they just
Speaker 1: start avoiding those areas. I mean, we're talking about reduced habitat,
Speaker 1: which can ultimately, uh put a species at a higher
Speaker 1: risk for extinction. Like the way I like to think
Speaker 1: about it is, if you have an animal, a wild
Speaker 1: animal in its natural habitat, if you were to build
Speaker 1: a mini mall where its habitat is, then it cannot
Speaker 1: live there anymore. If a mini mall occupies that space. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you have the what is a mini mall mini mall,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, like a strip mall. Right, um
Speaker 1: but but but but likewise, even if like it was
Speaker 1: just an open space and you had a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of noise, that space is occupied by a noise that
Speaker 1: it cannot cope with. So it's that cuts off that
Speaker 1: whole area it's as if you built a mini mall there. Well,
Speaker 1: and a lot of land in the US and the
Speaker 1: continent of US is in fact really close to roads,
Speaker 1: which are a great source of noise. So there was
Speaker 1: a stat that we found of land is within just
Speaker 1: one kilometer of a road. Yeah, this distance, the sound
Speaker 1: of an average car is around twenty deciples and the
Speaker 1: at the same distance trucks and motorcycles forty deciples. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of noise. Yeah, so what can we do. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of it kind of breaks down to make
Speaker 1: less noise. It's kind of quiet people, It's kind of simple.
Speaker 1: The The thing is, our lives are pretty noisy, so
Speaker 1: you can't just say, like stop driving vehicles or stop
Speaker 1: using roads. So the better solution ends up being things
Speaker 1: like have quieter road surfaces, um put up noise barriers
Speaker 1: like the walls you see you know a lot when
Speaker 1: the whenever the interstate goes through a major city or something.
Speaker 1: Here's a good one appropriate signage in protected areas. But
Speaker 1: this also reminds me of the signs that you'll sometimes
Speaker 1: encounter in different neighborhoods about no honking your horn or
Speaker 1: the laws they have about you know, you can't cruise
Speaker 1: this neighborhood, so you can only go buy it, you know,
Speaker 1: once in some set amount of time. And I assume
Speaker 1: they're also uh laws regarding like how loud your radio
Speaker 1: can be and stuff like that. Yeah, or even on
Speaker 1: the on the subway, you know, you can't bring a
Speaker 1: boom box. Other people do and it's crazy how loud
Speaker 1: people can make their cell phones on subway. But that's
Speaker 1: something that gets me. It's like, not as much like
Speaker 1: if a dude were to bring a boom box on
Speaker 1: and listen to his music at least you yeah, yeah, totally, um,
Speaker 1: like I would respect that a lot more than the
Speaker 1: guy who brings on a cell phone and is going
Speaker 1: to play his cell phone, like to play some track
Speaker 1: off his cell phone. Allowed, And you can't even under
Speaker 1: like it's just this tinny noise you know, coming out.
Speaker 1: It's like what do you you You're not even able
Speaker 1: to do. You don't even hear anything on the subway anyway,
Speaker 1: because you're a Mr Anonymous with your sunglasses and your
Speaker 1: your music or your podcast, I'll turn up loud so
Speaker 1: but still sometimes they'll be that one dude and you're like,
Speaker 1: what's going through your mind. Get some headphones for that thing,
Speaker 1: like it's got a headphone jack on it, and they're
Speaker 1: not that expensive. All right, So now we know when
Speaker 1: Robert's Pitt peeves. So what else can we do. We
Speaker 1: can restrict motorized travel, like you guys are gonna think
Speaker 1: in protected areas in addition to appropriate signage, and that
Speaker 1: would be like maybe you you don't let people drive,
Speaker 1: you know, along all the roads that go through a
Speaker 1: national park. And certainly I think they've they've cut down
Speaker 1: on travel through a lot of a lot of the
Speaker 1: road like that. I think there was a time where
Speaker 1: it was like roads everywhere, let's just drive. Yeah, certainly,
Speaker 1: like nineteen fifties in the United States. I mean they
Speaker 1: were just building out the highway system everywhere. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: so I feel like some of the things that we've
Speaker 1: mentioned so far are really addressing the symptoms and not
Speaker 1: the cause of the problem, not the illness itself. So
Speaker 1: this next one is pretty interesting and that it actually
Speaker 1: tries to tackle aircraft and it's called maybe guys have
Speaker 1: heard of this, the Silent Aircraft Initiative. So, um, this
Speaker 1: is a Cambridge m I T venture that was discussed
Speaker 1: a couple of years back. Yeah, and they have this
Speaker 1: this awesome idea for the silent aircraft. The model that
Speaker 1: they're looking at particularly is the Essay X forty. That's
Speaker 1: the silent Aircraft experimental. Uh and uh there have been
Speaker 1: other designs on it as well, and it's it's basically
Speaker 1: read because the thing is when you when people design
Speaker 1: an airplane, they really tend not to think about the noise,
Speaker 1: even if you're dealing like a stealth airplane or something.
Speaker 1: It's it's not the noise you're thinking of, like noise.
Speaker 1: It's just it's gonna be as loud as it's going
Speaker 1: to be. Deal with it, you know. That's kind of
Speaker 1: the approach. So these guys have like redesigned the airplane,
Speaker 1: thinking well, what can we do from a design standpoint
Speaker 1: that cuts down on the noise. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that we should take a second just to note that
Speaker 1: it's not going to be silent, right, yes, yeah, silent.
Speaker 1: Whenever they refer to silent, they put in in quotations
Speaker 1: because right, so we're talking about an aircraft whose noise
Speaker 1: would probably be hopefully imperceptible. Um, if you're going outside
Speaker 1: the perimeter of your regular urban airport. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: also not like I think the time frame they were
Speaker 1: looking at was maybe twenty thirty they'd have something. So
Speaker 1: so you guys are not going to be flying on
Speaker 1: this anytime soon. But the mere fact that people are
Speaker 1: working on it is great. I'm curious about some of
Speaker 1: the engineering stuff that they have going on in here
Speaker 1: to lower noise pollution. Can we just check out some
Speaker 1: also there as a side, they're also looking at improved
Speaker 1: fuel efficiency. That's but yeah, they're they're looking installing the
Speaker 1: engines embedded within the fuselage with intakes above the wings
Speaker 1: to shield most of the engine noise from listeners on
Speaker 1: the ground. So I guess they're kind of redirecting the noise.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, okay, yeah, And then there's they have
Speaker 1: this novel ultra high bypass engine. Would they quote variable
Speaker 1: area exit not? Also okay. This just means that the
Speaker 1: engine can operate for low noise with low speed exhaust
Speaker 1: jets and take off and during climb at takeoff and
Speaker 1: during climb, and then it can be optimized for minimal
Speaker 1: fuel burn during cruise. So it's just you know, geering
Speaker 1: it down a little in terms of how much noise
Speaker 1: is putting on how much fuel it's consuming. Yeah, they've
Speaker 1: also rejiggered the engine exhaust dex so that they can
Speaker 1: kind of absorb the sound, which I thought was pretty
Speaker 1: cool as well. But again, this is not going to
Speaker 1: be coming to an airport near you. Yeah, but but
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, but it is. It's just such
Speaker 1: a great idea that like maybe the ultimate um take
Speaker 1: home from this is that like what can what can
Speaker 1: be applied to every other aspect of our lives, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of redesigning, rethinking in a way like how it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, let's redesign airplane so it makes less noise,
Speaker 1: Like could you redesign the house or redesign our lives
Speaker 1: so it has less of an impact on the environment
Speaker 1: and the lives around us. But I think culturally speaking,
Speaker 1: noise has such an important part in our lives. Like
Speaker 1: even talking about we're talking about driving cars before, right,
Speaker 1: and if you happen to drive a Prius, say, and
Speaker 1: they've come up with this invention to a noisemaker for
Speaker 1: your Prius, if you're not used to how silent your
Speaker 1: your Prius drives. So it's just I mean, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me in the that noise provides cues to us,
Speaker 1: so we can't really live without, or we're not used
Speaker 1: to living without, you know what I mean. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: like this is another not to just continually harp on
Speaker 1: public transportation, but I like think of there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with going on public transportation, Mista. Well, like when you
Speaker 1: go to the the train stops here in town, the
Speaker 1: Marta stops and h there's a lot of noise there,
Speaker 1: obviously because you have a train moving through it, but
Speaker 1: then they also pipe in this like horrible you know,
Speaker 1: music kind of noise that nobody's listening to. Like I
Speaker 1: can't imagine anybody's I do. At the holidays, I totally
Speaker 1: listened to it. Yeah, but when you take Marta, do you? Yes,
Speaker 1: I do, okay, especially in the morning when I'm too
Speaker 1: brain dead to do anything else. You know, when somebody's
Speaker 1: cheerily singing, I'm not talking about singing, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: music that they're piping in. Well, I can't think of
Speaker 1: its music or if it actually has voices, but I listen, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe something will like it. What I'm just saying, it's
Speaker 1: like it's strictly speaking, is it necessary, you know, for
Speaker 1: something we could scale back on and make the world
Speaker 1: a quieter place. Yeah, do you guys have ideas on
Speaker 1: how to make a quieter planet? Please send them to us.
Speaker 1: We're at science stuff at how stu first dot com.
Speaker 1: But before you wrap it up, let's hear from a listener.
Speaker 1: I've got a cool email here from Mark and he writes,
Speaker 1: just listen to your August thirty one podcast in which
Speaker 1: you chatted about evolution and slugs. At the end of
Speaker 1: the show, it made me think of the Ricky Gervei
Speaker 1: podcast audio book as Carl Pinklington pink Pilkington. I think
Speaker 1: it's Pilkington has some interesting theories about evolution and absolutely
Speaker 1: hate slugs. And then he points out it is a
Speaker 1: free promo of it that came out on like YouTube
Speaker 1: a few years back. But I actually listened to it,
Speaker 1: and um, a lot of it is this guy just
Speaker 1: sort of not understanding evolution and Ricky Gervei trying to
Speaker 1: explain evolution, and then the guy talking about how he
Speaker 1: hates flux, which I hate as well. But but Jurvet
Speaker 1: made an interesting point about slugs that may had me
Speaker 1: that made me have to stop and rethink them because
Speaker 1: I tend to think that they're worthless and they're disgusting,
Speaker 1: and already talked about why they were the worthless well
Speaker 1: he well, he pointed out that that they're they're they're perfect,
Speaker 1: like they've been around for so long, they're they're filling
Speaker 1: this this particular role in in life itself. Like that's
Speaker 1: a perfect design. So you may be grossed out at it,
Speaker 1: but that slug is perfect. Same thing you like, do
Speaker 1: you think snakes or spiders are gross? Well, you're looking
Speaker 1: perfect design. Yeah, sure, basis of ecology. I gotta love them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So thanks Mark, I appreciated checking out that link. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you guys want to send us your thoughts on
Speaker 1: slugs or the noisy world we live in again, Brett
Speaker 1: science stuff at housta first dot com and over on
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter. We're kind of quiet but but very active,
Speaker 1: So check us out on face Book where we're stuff
Speaker 1: in the science lab or um. You can also go
Speaker 1: to Twitter where we're lab stuff and we'll try and
Speaker 1: keep you updated on cool stuff that we're finding out
Speaker 1: about and stuff that we're podcasting about. So yes, that's
Speaker 1: all we got. Thanks for listening, guys for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check out
Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stuff works dot Com home page.