I love the juxtaposition of these two stories in the Times.

This one tells of how whales have adapted to human noise pollution in the ocean (sonar, weapons testing, drilling, etc.) by learning how to shut out certain sounds.

“It’s equivalent to plugging your ears when a jet flies over,” said Paul E. Nachtigall, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii who led the discovery team. “It’s like a volume control.”

While this one tells of how human beings are experiencing hearing problems due to the noise level of certain clubs, restaurants and stores…

Across New York City, in restaurants and bars, but also in stores and gyms, loud noise has become a fact of life in the very places where people have traditionally sought respite from urban stress. The New York Times measured noise levels at 37 restaurants, bars, stores and gyms across the city and found levels that experts said bordered on dangerous at one-third of them.

…Hearing experts say ears never get used to loud noise. “Your ears don’t get more tolerant,” said Dr. Gordon Hughes, director for clinical trials at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. “Your psyche gets more tolerant.”

So we’re causing noise pollution that affects both humans and whales—and the whales are adapting to it better than we are?