On Thu, 4 Mar 2010, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote: > The computers are indeed noisy; and I suspect that a lot of the hearing > loss I've accumulated over the years is due to the constant low-level of > fan and drive noise I'm exposed to. I've actually taken to wearing > earmuffs at times. So I'd really like to make things quieter. I worked on a hearing-loss project a couple of years ago and I can tell you that a lot of what people believe about loud noises and hearing loss just isn't supported by the data. Anecdote: My dad was a tail gunner and radio operator in the Korean War. He was exposed to a lot of loud noise that he thought damaged his hearing. Now he is 83 years old and has hearing problems. But my hearing also is declining. I'm 32 years younger than my dad and I did go to some really loud rock concerts, but maybe we are just genetically prone to hearing loss. It's hard to say. The research supports the genetic hypothesis more than the noise hypothesis for most cases of age-related hearing loss. Mike