Hearing Aids Waikato

03/01/2023

28/08/2021

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE SOUND THAT A RATTLESNAKE MAKES - (Credit Live Science)

Rattlesnake rattles use auditory illusion to trick human brains
By Ben Turner 8 days ago
The trick is a surprising instance of mammal-snake coevolution.
The Western diamondback rattlesnake, one of the species of rattlesnake known to use frequency jumps to trick the ear. (Image credit: Tobias Kohl)
The menacing rattle of a rattlesnake's tail is far more sophisticated than first thought, as the sound can create an auditory illusion that suggests the venomous snake is closer to a potential threat than it really is, according to a new study.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE SOUND THAT A RATTLESNAKE MAKES - (Credit Live Science)

Rattlesnake rattles use auditory illusion to trick human brains
By Ben Turner 8 days ago
The trick is a surprising instance of mammal-snake coevolution.
The Western diamondback rattlesnake, one of the species of rattlesnake known to use frequency jumps to trick the ear. (Image credit: Tobias Kohl)
The menacing rattle of a rattlesnake's tail is far more sophisticated than first thought, as the sound can create an auditory illusion that suggests the venomous snake is closer to a potential threat than it really is, according to a new study.
Scientists think that rattlesnakes "rattle" the keratin structure on their tails to warn off predators, gradually increasing the frequency as a possible attacker gets closer. But now they've found the snake may have another trick in its arsenal — a sudden frequency jump in the rattling sound that it uses to fool its listener.
"Our data show that the acoustic display of rattlesnakes, which has been interpreted for decades as a simple acoustic warning signal about the presence of the snake, is in fact a far more intricate interspecies communication signal," senior study author Boris Chagnaud, a professor of neurobiology at Karl-Franzens-University Graz in Austria, said in a statement.
Chagnaud discovered the first clue to the mystery of rattlesnakes' "smart signal" high-frequency mode while approaching one of the snakes during a visit to a laboratory. He noticed that the frequency of the snake's iconic rattle increased before suddenly jumping as he approached, but decreased as he retreated.
To figure out what was behind this phenomenon, he and his team recorded the frequency of the rattle as various objects — including a human-like torso and a black disk — were brought closer to the snake. As threats first approached, the rattling rose by a steady rate to a frequency of 40 Hz, but as the objects came closer, the frequency suddenly jumped to between 60 and 100 Hz. According to the researchers, the rattling rate increased more quickly the faster the object approached, but changing the size of the object didn't impact the frequency level.
To figure out why the snake was changing its rattling rate, and why it was using a sudden jump in frequency, the researchers designed a virtual reality grassland with a virtual snake hiding inside of it. Sending 11 volunteers inside the simulation, the researchers asked the volunteers to approach the virtual snake and indicate when the creature was 3.3 feet (1 meter) away. The cyber snake increased its rattling rate as the humans approached, suddenly leaping to 70 Hz as the volunteers came within 13 feet (4 m), and was able to trick all of the human participants into underestimating their distance to it.
Chagnaud thinks that rattlesnakes weave this weird auditory illusion in order to create a "distance safety margin" between them and a potential attacker. He hypothesizes that human hearing, alongside the other mammalian auditory systems that it is closely related to, picks up on the frequency of the rattle and the rule of how it increases with distance, only to be fooled when the snake changes this rule with an unexpected, and sudden, jump in the frequency.
"Imagine you walk towards the snake, it starts to rattle slowly, increasing the rattle events incrementally. If at a distance of 2 meters [6.5 feet] from the snake, the snake suddenly changes this rule, and instead of making the 2 meter sound, it makes the sounds like it's only at 1 meter [3.3 feet], then it fooled you," Chagnaud told Live Science in an email.
Sure enough, when Chagnaud tested this hypothesis by repeating his virtual reality experiment without the frequency jumps, his human participants were far better at guessing the distance to the virtual snake.
"Snakes do not just rattle to advertise their presence, but they evolved an innovative solution: a sonic distance warning device similar to the one included in cars while driving backwards," he said in the statement. "Evolution is a random process, and what we might interpret from today's perspective as elegant design is in fact the outcome of thousands of trials of snakes encountering large mammals. The snake rattling coevolved with mammalian auditory perception by trial and error, leaving those snakes that were best able to avoid being stepped on."
The researchers published their findings Aug. 19 in the journal Current Biology.

Originally published on Live Science.

07/06/2021

What are some other causes of permanent hearing loss?

What are some other causes of permanent hearing loss?

Other than hearing loss associated with aging (called presbycusis), the single greatest cause is working around noise. The ear does not know the difference between loud noise and loud music. To the ear, noise and music are just vibrations in the air. Rarely, a person may suffer a permanent hearing loss from a virus or even a brain tumor. These usually have a sudden onset and may be accompanied by dizziness. Hearing loss from noise or music tends to be gradual in nature with no dizziness. If one experiences dizziness or a sudden hearing loss, one should contact their doctor.

30/04/2021

EXCERCISE AND HEARING LOSS
A new study published in JAMA Network Open examined the association between hearing loss and a decrease in physical activity.

EXCERCISE AND HEARING LOSS

A new study published in JAMA Network Open examined the association between hearing loss and a decrease in physical activity.
The researchers, who included Frank R. Lin, MD, looked at data from 291 adults between the ages of 60-69 included in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They examined the association of hearing loss with “objectively measured physical activity,” hypothesizing that a hearing impairment would be linked with a less rigorous and regular physical activity regimen.
According to the study, “hearing loss was independently associated with poorer physical activity, including less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, less light-intensity physical activity, more sedentary behaviors, and a more fragmented physical activity pattern.” Researchers postulated these results could be related to higher rates of social isolation and depression among people with hearing loss, which has been linked in previous studies to lower rates of exercise. Additionally, the greater cognitive effort required to hear with an impairment may decrease the amount of time someone is able to maintain an active physical state. Other physical limitations that were not measured, such as neurodegenerative diseases, could also have contributed to the effects.

FOR FULL REPORT, FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778845?utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=content-shareicons&utm_content=article_engagement&utm_medium=social&utm_term=042121 #.YICP-5Ht30o.linkedin

24/04/2021

UK NEWS - TINNITUS V CORONA VIRUS - The Guardian
Tinnitus helpline reports a surge in calls since start of the coronavirus pandemic
Scientists are concerned virus or medication used for treating Covid-19 is causing ear damage - Suzanne Bearne - Sat 17 Apr 2021 17.00 BST

UK NEWS - TINNITUS V CORONA VIRUS - The Guardian

Tinnitus helpline reports a surge in calls since start of the coronavirus pandemic
Scientists are concerned virus or medication used for treating Covid-19 is causing ear damage - Suzanne Bearne - Sat 17 Apr 2021 17.00 BST

More people are complaining of developing tinnitus for the first time or have found their symptoms have worsened since the start of the pandemic, according to scientists and other leading experts who specialise in the condition.
The British Tinnitus Association (BTA) has reported a surge in the number of people accessing its services, with a 256% increase in the number of web chats from May to December 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. Calls to its helpline rose by 16% during the same period.
Tinnitus – the term used to describe sounds such as ringing, whooshing or humming coming from an internal source rather than externally – affects about 7 million people in the UK.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recognised tinnitus as a common symptom of Covid-19 and long-Covid in guidelines on managing the long-term effects of the virus in December 2020. Tinnitus-related searches on Google have soared following the outbreak of Covid-19, with searches for “tinnitus causes” jumping 83% in February 2021 compared with February 2020, while searches for “tinnitus” grew by 50% over the same period, according to data collated by software company SEMrush.
David Stockdale, the BTA chief executive, said: “Calls to our helpline and visits to our website have really increased as people are looking for support, and they’re struggling to get through the healthcare system. For a lot of people, the emotional and social consequence [of Covid-19] has made tinnitus worse.”
Dr Eldré Beukes, a research fellow in audiology at Anglia Ruskin University, said: “There are two sides to this – people who have got tinnitus now, either from Covid or just during the pandemic, and people with pre-existing tinnitus reporting that it’s worse. We need more research to look into the different mechanics, but the possible reason could be the virus itself impacting the ear and causing ear damage that can result in tinnitus and hearing loss.
“Another possible theory is that the medication received in hospital while having Covid could have damaged the inner ear.”
Aisling Starrs, 38, a co-facilitator of a tinnitus support group, lives in Derry and has had tinnitus for the past two years but says her symptoms have intensified since she had Covid-19 in September 2020.
“It’s the worst it’s ever been,” she said. “The level of noise in my left ear has gone from a three to a seven. Six months later, and it hasn’t gone. It’s sometimes hard to differentiate between external noises and my tinnitus. If I’m in the house on my own, I’m always thinking: have I left an appliance on?”
For those experiencing tinnitus, Beukes advised: “It’s important to know that help is available and you’re not alone. There’s help from the British Tinnitus Association and online support groups. And yoga, CBT, and sound-based apps that provide nature sounds to distract from tinnitus can help.”
A study by the BTA and Anglia Ruskin University found that nearly half (46%) of UK sufferers said that their tinnitus has been made worse during the pandemic, and four out of 10 people who had Covid-19 symptoms reported that their tinnitus was more bothersome.
The BTA is calling for 1% of the £750m cost of treating tinnitus to be given to research to find cures. Some 125,000 people have signed a petition backing the call.

05/04/2021

JUST HOW SMART WILL HEARING AIDS BECOME IN THE FUTURE USING AI?

JUST HOW SMART WILL HEARING AIDS BECOME IN THE FUTURE USING AI?
More than words: Using AI to map how the brain understands sentences - University of Rochester Medical Center

Have you ever wondered why you are able to hear a sentence and understand its meaning – given that the same words in a different order would have an entirely different meaning? New research involving neuroimaging and A.I., describes the complex network within the brain that comprehends the meaning of a spoken sentence.

Cat on car
Say what you see in this picture out loud - "The cat ran over the car." A.I. is helping researchers unlock how your brain knows that sentence is different than - "The car ran over the cat."

“It has been unclear whether the integration of this meaning is represented in a particular site in the brain, such as the anterior temporal lobes, or reflects a more network level operation that engages multiple brain regions,” said Andrew Anderson, Ph.D., research assistant professor in the University of Rochester Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience and lead author on of the study which was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. “The meaning of a sentence is more than the sum of its parts. Take a very simple example – ‘the car ran over the cat’ and ‘the cat ran over the car’ – each sentence has exactly the same words, but those words have a totally different meaning when reordered.”

The study is an example of how the application of artificial neural networks, or A.I., are enabling researchers to unlock the extremely complex signaling in the brain that underlies functions such as processing language. The researchers gather brain activity data from study participants who read sentences while undergoing fMRI. These scans showed activity in the brain spanning across a network of different regions – anterior and posterior temporal lobes, inferior parietal cortex, and inferior frontal cortex. Using the computational model InferSent – an A.I. model developed by Facebook trained to produce unified semantic representations of sentences – the researchers were able to predict patterns of fMRI activity reflecting the encoding of sentence meaning across those brain regions.

“It's the first time that we've applied this model to predict brain activity within these regions, and that provides new evidence that contextualized semantic representations are encoded throughout a distributed language network, rather than at a single site in the brain.”

Anderson and his team believe the findings could be helpful in understanding clinical conditions. “We’re deploying similar methods to try to understand how language comprehension breaks down in early Alzheimer's disease. We are also interested in moving the models forward to predict brain activity elicited as language is produced. The current study had people read sentences, in the future we're interested in moving forward to predict brain activity as people might speak sentences.”

Additional co-authors include Edmund Lalor, Ph.D., Rajeev Raizada, Ph.D., and Scott Grimm, Ph.D., with the University of Rochester, Douwe Kiela with Facebook A.I. Research, and Jeffrey Binder, M.D., Leonardo Fernandino, Ph.D., Colin Humphries, Ph.D., and Lisa Conant, Ph.D. with the Medical College of Wisconsin. The research was supported with funding from the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience’s Schimtt Program on Integrative Neuroscience and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

02/05/2020

THERE IS SOME NEW TECHNOLOGY OUT THERE, A LOT CHEAPER THAN MEDICAL APPROVED HEARING AIDS - Do watch this video and comment below

The Nuheara IQbuds Boost are wireless earbuds that give you control over how you hear the world around you and auto-calibrates to match your unique hearing p...

23/11/2019

HEAR THIS: HEALTHFUL DIET TIED TO LOWER RISK OF HEARING LOSS.
Adherence to diets such as dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) and alternate mediterranean (AMED) diet associated with lower risk of hearing loss

BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
Boston, MA -- Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital have found that eating a healthy diet may reduce the risk of acquired hearing loss. Using longitudinal data collected in the Nurses' Health Study II Conservation of Hearing Study (CHEARS), researchers examined three-year changes in hearing sensitivities and found that women whose eating patterns more closely adhered to commonly recommended healthful dietary patterns, such as the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, the Alternate Mediterranean (AMED) diet, and the Alternate Healthy Index-2010 (AHEI-2010), had substantially lower risk of decline in hearing sensitivity. The team's findings are published in the American Journal of Epidemiology

"A common perception is that hearing loss is an inevitable part of the aging process. However, our research focuses on identifying potentially modifiable risk factors -- that is, things that we can change in our diet and lifestyle to prevent hearing loss or delay its progression," said lead author Sharon Curhan, MD, a physician and epidemiologist in the Brigham's Channing Division of Network Medicine. "The benefits of adherence to healthful dietary patterns have been associated with numerous positive health outcomes and eating a healthy diet may also help reduce the risk of hearing loss."

Previous studies have suggested that higher intake of specific nutrients and certain foods, such as the carotenoids beta-carotene and beta-cryptoxanthin (found in squash, carrots, oranges and other fruits and vegetables), folate (found in legumes, leafy greens, and other foods), long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (found in seafood and fish), were associated with lower risk of self-reported hearing loss. These findings revealed that dietary intake could influence the risk of developing hearing loss, but investigators sought to further understand the connection between diet and hearing loss by capturing overall dietary patterns and objectively measuring longitudinal changes in hearing sensitivities.

To do so, the researchers established 19 geographically diverse testing sites across the U.S. and trained teams of licensed audiologists to follow standardized CHEARS methods. The audiologists measured changes in pure-tone hearing thresholds, the lowest volume that a pitch can be detected by the participant in a given ear, over the course of 3 years. An audiologist presented tones of different frequencies (0.5, 1 and 2 kHz as low-frequencies; at 3 kHz and 4 kHz as mid-frequencies; and at 6 kHz and 8 kHz as higher frequencies) at variable "loudness" levels and participants were asked to indicate when they could just barely hear the tone.

Using over 20 years of dietary intake information that was collected every four years beginning in 1991, the researchers investigated how closely participants' long-term diets resembled some well-established and currently recommended dietary patterns, such as the DASH diet, the Mediterranean diet, and Alternate Healthy Index-2010 (AHEI-2010). Greater adherence to these dietary patterns has been associated with a number of important health outcomes, including lower risk of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, stroke and death as well as healthy aging.

The team found that the odds of a decline in mid-frequency hearing sensitivities were almost 30 percent lower among those whose diets most closely resembled these healthful dietary patterns, compared with women whose diets least resembled the healthful dietary patterns. In the higher frequencies, the odds were up to 25 percent lower.

"The association between diet and hearing sensitivity decline encompassed frequencies that are critical for speech understanding," said Curhan. "We were surprised that so many women demonstrated hearing decline over such a relatively short period of time. The mean age of the women in our study was 59 years; most of our participants were in their 50s and early 60s. This is a younger age than when many people think about having their hearing checked. After only three years, 19 percent had hearing loss in the low frequencies, 38 percent had hearing loss in the mid-frequencies, and almost half had hearing loss in the higher frequencies. Despite this considerable worsening in their hearing sensitivities, hearing loss among many of these participants would not typically be detected or addressed."

The study included female health care professionals, which enhanced the validity of the health information collected and reduced the variability in educational achievement and socioeconomic status, but the study population was limited to predominantly middle-aged, non-Hispanic white women. The authors note that further research in additional populations is warranted. The team hopes to continue to longitudinally follow the participants in this study with repeated hearing tests over time and is investigating ways to collect research-quality information on tens of thousands of participants for future studies across diverse populations.

# # #

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (DC 010811 and UM1 CA 176726). Curhan serves as a consultant to Decibel Therapeutics. A co-author serves as a consultant to Decibel Therapeutics, AstraZeneca, Shire, Allena Pharmaceuticals, RenalGuard, Orfan Biotech, OM1, and Merck and receives royalties from UpToDate for being an author and Section Editor.

Brigham Health, a global leader in creating a healthier world, consists of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital, the Brigham and Women's Physicians Organization and many related facilities and programs. With more than 1,000 inpatient beds, approximately 60,000 inpatient stays and 1.7 million outpatient encounters annually, Brigham Health's 1,200 physicians provide expert care in virtually every medical and surgical specialty to patients locally, regionally and around the world. An international leader in basic, clinical and translational research, Brigham Health has nearly 5,000 scientists, including physician-investigators, renowned biomedical researchers and faculty supported by over $700 million in funding. The Brigham's medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and now, with 19,000 employees, that rich history is the foundation for its commitment to research, innovation, and community. Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and dedicated to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. For more information, resources, and to follow us on social media, please visit brighamandwomens.org.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

23/03/2019

IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE A WHOLE EAR MAY BE RECONSTRUCTED IN THIS WAY - WELL DONE TO THIS TEAM - PLEASE NOTE THIS PROCEDURE WILL ONLY BE HELPFUL TO THOSE WITH A CONDUCTIVE HEARING LOSS.

A team of South African doctors in the capital city Pretoria has been hailed as pioneers in the field of global medicine after performing the first-ever transplant of a patient’s middle ear.
The achievement–which used 3D-printed technology to reconstruct the broken bones of a middle ear–is being celebrated as a long-term solution to conductive hearing loss. What’s more, the surgery can be performed on people of any age, including newborn babies, curing patients of a form of deafness that is caused by physical damage or infection in the middle ear as well as congenital birth defects and metabolic diseases.
The first patient to undergo the procedure was a 35-year-old male who lost his hearing after a car accident devastated his middle ear. Due to the nature of his trauma, the operation lasted about an hour and a half, according to Legit.
The brains behind the medical team at the University of Pretoria’s Steve Biko Academic Hospital, Professor Mashudu Tshifularo, had been studying conductive hearing loss over the past decade, but in the past two years he began investigating the use of 3D printing technologies for the purpose of scanning and wholly recreating the smallest bones, or ossicles, of the middle ear–namely the hammer, anvil and stirrup.
In a celebratory press release issued by the South African Department of Health, Tshifularo is quoted as explaining:
“By replacing only the ossicles that aren’t functioning properly, the procedure carries significantly less risk than known prostheses and their associated surgical procedure.
We will use titanium for this procedure, which is biocompatible. We use an endoscope to do the replacement, so the transplant is expected to be quick, with minimal scarring.”
Tshifularo told local radio station Jacaranda FM:
“This was one of our patients we have been waiting for, for this reconstruction for almost three years now because they are not affordable … [but] we have done something new in the world and people will remember us for that.”
While expressing pride that he was the first in the world to revolutionize the new approach to address hearing loss, Tshifulara remains steadfast that the treatment must eventually become accessible and affordable for poor and working-poor patients, such as those who use South Africa’s public hospitals.
Tshifularo continued:
“Because we are doing it in the country and we are going to manufacture here, it has to be affordable for our people in state hospitals.
It will be very accessible because as long as we can train the young doctors to be able to do this operation, then it will be accessible for them as well.”
For Tshifularo, “innovate or perish” sums up his approach to medical science–both in terms of education, research, invention and clinical procedures, and also in terms of devising new solutions to the array of problems faced by struggling communities.
He hopes that he and his team at the university’s Department of Otorhinolaryngology (Ear, Nose and Throat) will receive the necessary funding from the government and private sponsors to ensure that this innovative approach to hearing loss treatment can get off the ground.
South African Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi has already pledged that the Department of Health will “do everything in our power to assist and mobilize resources to make sure that Prof. Tshifularo gets all the help he needs for this far-reaching innovation.”

The achievement is being celebrated as a long-term solution to conductive hearing loss.

17/01/2019

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT DOWN YOUR EAR CANALS? - Get your GP to inspect your ear canals on a regular basis - Do watch the video

29/12/2018

LOUD NOISE - BEWARE OVER THIS FESTIVE SEASON - THERE IS A LOT OF NOISE OUT THERE

Here are some simple things you can do to protect your hearing:
1. If it’s too loud, simply walk away or turn down the volume!
2. Prolonged exposure to more than 85dB (about as loud as a vacuum cleaner) can cause damage to your hearing.
3. Hearing protection is always a good idea. Rugy, cricket games’ and rock concerts’ noise levels are usually around 110dB.
4. A siren on a police car, fire truck or ambulance can be as loud as 120dB!
5. It’s also a good idea to have earplugs or some form of protection if you happen to work in a noisy environment.
6. Teenagers love listening to music with their earbuds, but 1 in 6 teens have hearing loss, which means the volume levels are probably too loud!
7. Even though they are expensive, noise-canceling headphones are popular these days. They block out background noises, allowing the volume to be turned down and listened to at quieter levels.
8. Make sure a hearing test is part of any routine health screening. Not only will it give you an idea of how well you are hearing, it might reveal indicators of other potential health issues you may be experiencing.

29/12/2018

CAN SOUND KILL YOU - THE ANSWER MAY STARTLE YOU

Can sound kill you? The short answer is “yes” — and, rather shockingly, the European Space Agency says that it now has such a sonic weapon in its arsenal that, if it was so inclined, could kill you. For the long answer, read on.
The huge horn is one of four giant acoustic orifices at the ESA’s Large European Acoustic Facility in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Rather than killing humans, though, the horns are actually for testing satellites — to see if they can withstand the noise of a rocket launch. (As you may know, the Space Shuttle’s Mobile Launch Platform used to dump 300,000 gallons of water onto the platform during launch, to absorb the intense acoustic energy that would otherwise damage the Shuttle.) The ESA’s horns are essentially giant air horns, using nitrogen gas to produce sounds as loud as 154 decibels.
The question is, is 154 decibels enough to kill you? In all honesty, probably not — unless, perhaps, you were stuck with your head inside the horn for a prolonged period. 150 decibels is usually considered enough to burst your eardrums, but the threshold for death is usually pegged at around 185-200 dB. A passenger car driving by at 25 feet is about 60 dB, being next to a jackhammer or lawn mower is around 100 dB, a nearby chainsaw is 120 dB. Generally, 150 dB (eardrum rupture) is only achieved if you stand really close to a jet aircraft during take-off or you’re near an explosive blast.
If you actually wanted to intentionally kill someone with a sonic weapon, there isn’t a whole lot of research on how you would actually go about doing it. The general consensus is that a loud enough sound could cause an air embolism in your lungs, which then travels to your heart and kills you. Alternatively, your lungs might simply burst from the increased air pressure. (Acoustic energy is just waves of varying sound pressure; the higher the energy, the higher the pressure, the louder the sound.) In some cases, where there’s some kind of underlying physical weakness, loud sounds might cause a seizure or heart attack — but there’s very little evidence to suggest this.
Perhaps more significantly, though, it’s important to note that a sonic weapon doesn’t have to be lethal or incredibly loud to be effective. High-intensity ultrasonic sound (generally anything above 20KHz) can cause physical damage. Some very low frequencies (infrasound) can apparently cause your eyeballs to vibrate, making it very hard to see. Targeted “sonic bullets” that cause localized pain (or simply burst your eardrums) is probably enough to immobilize most non-action-hero humans.
So, there you have it: Sound can kill you, but not in the standing-in-front-of-a-giant-speaker-stack-at-a-gig way that you were probably thinking. Unless you’re in an explosive blast (in which case you’d have other concerns, too), or you’re the victim of military testing of sonic weapons, the worst that’ll probably happen is that your eardrums would burst.

Can sound kill you? The short answer is 'yes' -- and, rather shockingly, the European Space Agency says that it now has such a sonic weapon in its arsenal. For the long answer, read on.