Hearing International

Forty-two years after the first US oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859, a wildcatter known as Captain Anthony Lucas was convinced there was oil beneath the salt domes near Beaumont, Texas.  His 1901 discovery of oil at Spindletop, near Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry.  News of the new “Oil Boom” drew the

 Oysters CAN Hear!     Nah….….They don’t have ears!  Well, maybe not, but for you disbelievers there is new research that suggests that oysters not only can hear but are affected by the overall noise pollution of the seas.  Sounds such as cargo ships, underwater oil exploration and other noisy activities are causing interesting activities in molluscs as well as

Last week at Hearing International we left this story with the “the jury is still out” as to whether the attack is real or a myth.   It was pointed out by one of our readers, a physicist, that this “sonic attack” could possibly have been the result of an Infrasound.  His suggestion was that studies from medical and audiological professionals

Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of “noise” about the sounds heard in the American Embassy in Havana, Cuba.  This week Hearing International will take a close look at this issue and even play the Associated Press’s recording of the sound alleged to be heard in the embassy, creating a severe loss of hearing among a

During the vibrant musical landscape of the late 1950s and early 1960s, cities across the United States reverberated with the harmonious melodies of Doo-Wop songs that breathed new life into classic tunes. This era witnessed the rise and fall of numerous musical ensembles, as some faded into obscurity while others catapulted into the limelight, achieving widespread fame. Among these rising

These days any type of identification is beneficial. Forget fingerprints, retinal scans or the color of your eyes, and other markers of identity, security could soon be looking at the shape of your ears when deciding whether you are who you say you are. This week’s Hearing International looks at ear identity scans.  Researchers have discovered that each person’s ears

Last week we discussed the development of a concept described as the Vactrain.  While the concept began in the 19th century, Robert Goddard, as a freshman at Worchester Polytechnic Institute, substantially refined the idea in a 1906 short story called “The High-Speed Bet” which was summarized and published in a 1909  Scientific American editorial called “The Limit of Rapid Transit“.  Goddard’s wife,

As a brand new Air force recruit doing basic training in 1966 at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas,  I was detailed to Wilford Hall Hospital for a days work in the message center located in the basement of the building.  The job was to take messages that came in tubes (similar to the tubes used in banks

Emergencies and disasters profoundly affect thousands of individuals around the world each year. Roughly 5% of the world’s population have some form of deafness, it has been well documented that the deaf and other disabled individuals often experience the most difficulty when it comes to preparing for and recovering from emergencies and natural disasters.  The past few weeks in the

A few years ago at Hearing International we did a post regarding air bags and their effect on hearing.  That report was primarily about how these miracle devices work and save lives with a comment about the impulse noise issues surrounding the their deployment.  Among people in accidents with airbags deploying, Price (2007) suggests that 17 percent suffer permanent hearing