Noise From Traffic Stunts Growth of Baby Birds, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 24
Noise pollution from traffic stunts growth in baby birds, even while inside the egg, research has found. From a report: Unhatched birds and hatchlings that are exposed to noise from city traffic experience long-term negative effects on their health, growth and reproduction, the study found. "Sound has a much stronger and more direct impact on bird development than we knew before," said Dr Mylene Mariette, a bird communication expert at Deakin University in Australia and a co-author of the study, published in the journal Science. "It would be wise to work more to reduce noise pollution."
A growing body of research has suggested that noise pollution causes stress to birds and makes communication harder for them. But whether birds are already distressed at a young age because they are affected by noise, or by how noise disrupts their environment and parental care, was still unclear. Mariette's team routinely exposed zebra finch eggs for five days to either silence, soothing playbacks of zebra finch songs, or recordings of city traffic noises such as revving motors and cars driving past. They did the same with newborn chicks for about four hours a night for up to 13 nights, without exposing the birds' parents to the sounds.
A growing body of research has suggested that noise pollution causes stress to birds and makes communication harder for them. But whether birds are already distressed at a young age because they are affected by noise, or by how noise disrupts their environment and parental care, was still unclear. Mariette's team routinely exposed zebra finch eggs for five days to either silence, soothing playbacks of zebra finch songs, or recordings of city traffic noises such as revving motors and cars driving past. They did the same with newborn chicks for about four hours a night for up to 13 nights, without exposing the birds' parents to the sounds.
Cicadas? (Score:2)
This year would be an opportunity to find out if it's only human-made noise that causes a problem
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It might be the kind of noise and the stress that animals. Also Cicadas are not active at night, so hopefully baby birds can still get some sleep.
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Presumably critters evolved to deal with noises that naturally and regularly occur in their native habitats.
This doesn't mean that natural noises that aren't regularly part of their normal habitat can't harm them. It's possible that animals whose range naturally overlaps the periodical cicadas do get harmed by that noise, but the harm is not significant enough to exert selective evolutionary pressure.
So natural isn't necessarily benign. Nor, do I think, is *unnatural* necessarily harmful. But dose does mak
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Selective pressure on humans has been greatly blunted by technology and culture. In the near future, it's unlikely that natural selection will play a dominate role in human development. So CVD and poor eyesight and wisdom teeth and all sorts of other things are going to have to be solved by humans and not millennia of selection.
In Other News (Score:3, Insightful)
Noise from that GOD DAMN LEAFBLOWER turns otherwise happy people into alcoholics.
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Leaf blowers
Chain saws
Motor vehicles with illegal exhaust modifications
Stupid endless "reverse beeping" of construction vehicles
Unnecessary horn honking
Unnecessary sirens
F'ing boom-box cars
Dogs barking endlessly
Inconsiderate people blasting music instead of using earphones
I don't know about birds, but noise constantly stresses me out.
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Ever participate in a conference call with people in India? The constant honking you always hear in the backgrounds boggles the mind. How can anyone put up with that? No wonder they all seem to want to get out.
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[further rant on]
I can't even stand restaurants now because people are so inconsiderate they use the damn speakers on their stupid phones, squealing/shrill noise from speakerphone conversations, watching videos, playing games and "entertaining" themselves and their also-addicted children (to supposedly prevent them from endless screaming, and I am not sure which is worse). Almost the same thing in many stores, waiting rooms, lines, etc.
At work in the cafeteria, they put up signs saying "no speaker use on p
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Ever participate in a conference call with people in India? The constant honking you always hear in the backgrounds boggles the mind. How can anyone put up with that? No wonder they all seem to want to get out.
Get out of where? I've not only heard an equal amount of honking in every 3rd world country (in some places I've been to people literally honk to say hello to each other, no REALLY!), but the place that I've heard the most honking anywhere is a far more interesting list: Chicago, New York, and London, easily my top three. And yes I've been to Bangladesh and Pune.
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Noise from that GOD DAMN LEAFBLOWER turns otherwise happy people into alcoholics.
It also turns sheltered students going to Uni into brain-dead moronic protesters that might be equally at home in a 3rd rate zombie movie.
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What drives me nuts is how everyone thinks they have to have a huge lawnmower engine that sounds like an old-school biplane preparing to take off in your backyard, just to mow their 500 square foot plot of turf grass. And over again, to get the "nice lines."
I have a 40V electric lawnmower that cats that on less than half a charge and just as fast, plus it is virtually silent in comparison. And you don't get the toxic emissions from incomplete combustion by these low-efficiency engines, spewing into your loc
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Hopefully your state will follow the examples from California, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. which have put regulations into place that restrict or outright ban the use of gas-powered lawnmowers and leaf blowers to protect their residents from air and noise pollution. Minnesota, Washington state, and a few other locations are also studying similar restrictions. State agencies in Colorado will be banned from using certain gas-powered lawn equipment during the summer, according to a new rule adopted by the
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My loud clicky keyboard typings drove my co(lleague/worker)s nuts at my previous employer. :(
Can't wait... (Score:1)
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All electric cars still have horns, car radios, and idiots driving them. The problem is far bigger than just an ICE.
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Jerk birds (Score:2)
I'm getting real tired of nature's passive aggression. And your bird noise is OK or something? Birds don't exist anyway. Ugh. Just die already.
What's a "traffic stunt"? (Score:2)
And do traffic stunts make more noise than just regular traffic? And why do birds hang around traffic stunts anyway?
Let's take a look at the tape... (Score:2)
And there you have it folks! [youtube.com]
Back to you, Tony.
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Yes, very noisy indeed, and I'll bet it would disturb birds too.
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Road traffic sounds like a river sometimes (Score:2)
At least to me. When I lived in Houston I used to go to the Arboretum just to walk around for a while. There are lots of birds there.. It's just inside the 610 loop by Memorial Park. I usually took the same path which started out closest to the freeway and I knew and could tell is was traffic but as the path got further from the freeway it just sounded like a river in the distance until I got further in and couldn't hear it at all. Buffalo Bayou runs through it too, but it's a bayou and the slow current