万花筒 2013-03-15&03-17 高分贝耳机——听力杀手

 A story affecting every American family. Here is the question. Are your earphones ruining your hearing? Right now, tonight, are millions and millions of Americans walking around, listening to music but ensuring they will not be able to hear as well in the years ahead. Tonight, the mayor of New York says it's time to send out an alarm. And ABC's chief medical editor Dr. Richard E. Besser is stepping in.

30 years ago, peole in their 20s could all hear the rustle¹ of the leaves, the drip of a rain drop, the dabble² of children. Now for 1 in 5 of them, the sounds have gone forever. 

“Normally people will come in their 50s and 60s with hearing loss. And now that has shifted into people in their 30s and 40s.” In fact, Dr. George Alexiades has to tell more and more teens, their high-pitched hearing is already gone.

(Everybody in the club)

Designer headphones are big business, high-ticket must-haves. But for hearing loss, earbuds maybe the most destructive. Some context: music devices can produce about 115 decibels⁴ of sound, earbuds at 5 decibels more. 85 decibels is where hearing damage starts. Power tools, 98 decibels. A lawn mower⁵, 107. A jet taking off 100 feet away, 140. So how loud is the music? I went out with a decibel³ meter. 

--Coming in about 95. 105. Wow, 109. 

--Oh my god. 

Here is what happened inside you ear. When strong sound vibrations⁷ hit your ear, the problem deep inside the cochlea are fragile hear cells. They turn vibration⁶ into sound messages to the brain. Blast the more loud sounds, some wither⁸. If loud sound is brief, they will recover. But if it lasts too long or happens too often, they die and they’ll never grow back. 

“If you get to 100 decibels, I would limit that to about 1 hour a day.”

My advice? Never go higher than 3/4 of your top buying. And a couple of hours is enough. 

Dr. Richard E. Besser, ABC News, New York

1 rustle   

v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声

参考例句：

• She heard a rustle in the bushes.她听到灌木丛中一阵沙沙声。
• He heard a rustle of leaves in the breeze.他听到树叶在微风中发出的沙沙声。

2 dabble   

v.涉足，浅赏

参考例句：

• They dabble in the stock market.他们少量投资于股市。
• Never dabble with things of which you have no knowledge.绝不要插手你不了解的事物。

3 decibel   

n.分贝(音量的单位)

参考例句：

• The noise pollution reached a high decibel level.噪音污染达到了很高分贝。
• In sound we use the decibel scale.在声学中我们采用分贝标度。

4 decibels   

n.分贝( decibel的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The typical lawn mower makes about 90 decibels of noise. 典型的割草机发出的声响约为90分贝。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A normal conversation reaches 55 decibels. 普通的谈话即可达55分贝。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 mower   

n.割草机

参考例句：

• We need a lawn mower to cut the grass.我们需要一台草坪修剪机来割草。
• Your big lawn mower is just the job for the high grass.割高草时正需要你的大割草机。

6 vibration   

n.颤动，振动；摆动

参考例句：

• There is so much vibration on a ship that one cannot write.船上的震动大得使人无法书写。
• The vibration of the window woke me up.窗子的震动把我惊醒了。

7 vibrations   

n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动

参考例句：

• We could feel the vibrations from the trucks passing outside. 我们可以感到外面卡车经过时的颤动。
• I am drawn to that girl; I get good vibrations from her. 我被那女孩吸引住了，她使我产生良好的感觉。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 wither   

vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡

参考例句：

• She grows as a flower does-she will wither without sun.她象鲜花一样成长--没有太阳就会凋谢。
• In autumn the leaves wither and fall off the trees.秋天，树叶枯萎并从树上落下来。