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I asked an audiologist yesterday, but she didn't know. I always thought the NRR on a pack of ear plugs meant that was how much they reduced the noise. Then I read that to determine the true noise reducing effect, one subtracts seven from the NRR and divides by two. That means if my plugs have a NRR of 27-7/2=10. So if I'm firing a weapon = 169dB and only wearing earplugs, the noise hitting my ears is 159dB. That's still well above the instant damage level. Even wearing muffs, you only add 5dB to the protection which still equates...

If you were into the final minutes of watching a soccer match during South Africa's recent World Cup extravaganza and suddenly you had the overpowering urge to go out and kill somebody, blame the vuvuzela. ...When blown like a trumpet, the vuvuzela produces a loud monotone which musicologists say is pretty close to a B-flat, three octaves below middle C. ...Played by a bunch of rowdy soccer fans, however, a blast from the vuvuzela could strip the chrome off a trailer hitch. ...During the World Cup, TV audiences often heard only the sound of vuvuzelas. Networks examined the possibility of...