Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today's episode is a classic from
Speaker 1: our archives. It was, in fact, the first brain Stuff
Speaker 1: episode I ever recorded back in which feels like it
Speaker 1: was about thirty two years ago. I wanted to run
Speaker 1: this one again because with fall upon us here in
Speaker 1: the Northern Hemisphere and the trees starting to change colors
Speaker 1: and shed their leaves, one of our greatest enemies has
Speaker 1: re emerged. The leaf blower. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogel Bomb.
Speaker 1: Here ah the sounds of autumn, the satisfying crunch of
Speaker 1: a crisp apple or fallen leaves under your feet, or
Speaker 1: the teeth grinding noise of a leaf blower powered by
Speaker 1: electric or gasoline motors that propel air out of a
Speaker 1: nozzle to send leaves and grass cuttings. Flying leafblowers are
Speaker 1: probably the most villainized devices in the lawn care universe
Speaker 1: due to the noise that they admit. In the midnightteen seventies,
Speaker 1: when leaf blowers became ubiquitous in the United dates to California,
Speaker 1: cities adopted early bands of the equipment, Carmel by the
Speaker 1: Sea and Beverly Hills labeled the leaf blowers a noise
Speaker 1: nuisance and banned their use, a move that has been
Speaker 1: followed by hundreds of other cities across the United States
Speaker 1: to some degree. But what is it about leaf blowers
Speaker 1: that people hate is that the decibels, the constancy de
Speaker 1: leaf blowers pose real dangers to the health of users
Speaker 1: or others who happen to be with an ear shot. Increasingly,
Speaker 1: the answer appears to be yes to all of the above.
Speaker 1: Leafblowers may send leaves and long clippings for a ride,
Speaker 1: but the gusts, which reach a hundred and eighty two
Speaker 1: hundred eighty miles per hour that's about two d four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, also create a nose
Speaker 1: clogging swirl of fungis, spores, herbicides, and microbes. The resulting
Speaker 1: dust is so aggravating to people with allergies, asthma, bronchitis,
Speaker 1: and other respiratory maladies that the American Lung Association recommends
Speaker 1: staying away from leaf blowers altogether. And then there's the
Speaker 1: air pollution. Operating a commercial leaflower for one hour and
Speaker 1: it's as much smog forming pollution as you would if
Speaker 1: you drove a recent midsize car, as say Toyota Camera
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles to Denver, which is about a one thousand,
Speaker 1: one hundred mile or one eight hundred kilometer trip. That's
Speaker 1: because most leaf blowers use two cycle engines. They're lightweight
Speaker 1: and inexpensive, but they require a mixture of gasoline and
Speaker 1: oil to run. Unlike more complex engines, they don't have
Speaker 1: separate chambers for fuel and lubricants. When operated, the engine
Speaker 1: wastes approximately one third of the combined mixture, releasing carbon monoxide,
Speaker 1: nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbons into the air. These three toxins
Speaker 1: are some of the main culprits in the air pollution
Speaker 1: from leaf blowers. Carbon Monoxide helps form smog. Nitrous oxide
Speaker 1: is a prime ingredient in acid rain and has been
Speaker 1: linked to global warming. Hydrocarbons are cancer causing organic compounds
Speaker 1: that also contribute to smog formation. Plus, leafblowers are noisy.
Speaker 1: How noisy are they when you engage in conversation. That's
Speaker 1: a noise level of about sixty decibels according to the
Speaker 1: Center for Hearing and Communication. If you're strolling on a
Speaker 1: sidewalk and a car goes by, that's about seventy decibles.
Speaker 1: A leaf blower, even at fifty ft or fifteen meters away,
Speaker 1: can be up to seventy five deciples, and right up
Speaker 1: close that jumps well into the nineties. According to the
Speaker 1: World Health Organization, any noise above seventy five decibles risks
Speaker 1: causing physical hearing damage, and then there's the mental toll.
Speaker 1: Ms Aphonia is a relatively newly classified condition in which
Speaker 1: people are angered by particular sounds, like chewing or knuckle cracking.
Speaker 1: Although leaf blowers aren't mentioned in the diagnosis parameters, it
Speaker 1: stands to reason that missophonia may be related to people's
Speaker 1: dislike of the machines because they're extra sensitive to sound.
Speaker 1: Preliminary data shows that missophones brains may have a hyper
Speaker 1: sensitive connection between the auditory system and the limbic system,
Speaker 1: which is the part of the brain that's responsible for
Speaker 1: creating emotions. It's so much a part of life or
Speaker 1: misophones that they can be shocked when others don't feel
Speaker 1: or react the same way to certain noises. But being
Speaker 1: irritated by leaf blowers doesn't necessarily mean you're asaphone. Erica Walker,
Speaker 1: a doctoral student at Harvard Uni Versities Chance School of
Speaker 1: Public Health discovered that it is far less irritating to
Speaker 1: create a sound than it is to hear it. In
Speaker 1: a survey of one thousand fifty residents and more than
Speaker 1: a dozen Boston neighborhoods, Walker found that the majority of
Speaker 1: respondents said they couldn't control or get away from noises
Speaker 1: like leafblowers, and they believed that no one really cared
Speaker 1: that it annoyed them. What's more, other research has shown
Speaker 1: that leafblowers admit a low frequency noise that penetrates through
Speaker 1: outer walls into homes and businesses in a way that
Speaker 1: some other noises passing vehicles, for example, do not. However,
Speaker 1: leaf blowers have become an integral part of commercial lawn care.
Speaker 1: While a leaf blower may sound like fingernails across chalkboard
Speaker 1: to you, for the businesses that rely on them for
Speaker 1: a portion of their livelihood, it's probably music to the ears.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Laurel Dove and produced by
Speaker 1: Tristan Neil and Tyler clang Are More on this and
Speaker 1: lots of other topics. Is it how stuff Brooks dot com.
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