QUIET!

At our Dreamland Festival in May, one of the main things we’re going to investigate are the mysterious sounds that are being heard all around the world (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show and they get 10% off Festival tickets too!)

It has been discovered that noisy parts of the forest have more flowers, but fewer trees. Scrub Jays disperse the seeds of Pinyon pine trees, and black-chinned hummingbirds, which pollinate flowers, seek out noisy areas in order to avoid the jays, which eat their eggs and tiny babies.

Ecologist Clinton D. Francis says worries about the loss of pinyon pines, because they play a crucial role in the ecosystem of the Southwest: about 1,000 species of fungi, insects, arthropods, mammals and birds depend on them.

Too much noise may be good for hummers but it’s bad for humans. In the Wall Street Journal, A.J. Jacobs talks about how noisy he found a restaurant that he recently took his family to. Gary Rosen quotes Jacobs as saying, "Noise is no minor nuisance. It is one of the great underappreciated health hazards of our time–the secondhand smoke of our ears."

Jacobs quotes researcher Arline Bronzaft as saying, "The most obvious (problem) is hearing loss." The CDC reports that as many as 26 million adults may have noise-induced hearing loss.

Noise raises our stress level, which triggers the release of the stress hormone cortisol, raising our blood pressure and reducing male libido. On study of over 6,000 people who work in noisy jobs found that they have two to three times more heart problems than people who work in quiet settings. Noise-induced strain may cause 45,000 heart attacks a year.

The only noise you’ll hear at our Dreamland Festival is the sound of a little over 100 people having a great time (we keep our Festival small so we can meet everyone personally) and if you subscribe today, you’ll get 10% off ticket prices!