Daily Telegraph
... Scientists have found that noise has a physiological effect, including a potentially dangerous change to the heart's activity.The neighbourhood racket also has people picking up their phones, with 25 per cent more calls about noise made to the Environment Department's hotline in the past four years.
Airconditioning, pool pumps, alarms, animals, power tools and traffic were the most common causes of complaint.
And with good reason, according to RMIT Associate Professor of Biosignals Dinesh Kumar whose research linked noise to physical changes.
"Even though the noise level may not seem very high, it has an impact on the body," he said.
One of Professor Kumar's PhD students measured the responses of 20 participants to white noise, a mixture of individually unidentifiable sounds, ranging between 60dB and 95dB.
Professor Kumar said the controlled conditions experiment showed long periods of low-level noise had the same effect as much higher levels of noise.
The as-yet unpublished research will be presented at a conference in Brazil in 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment