More earbud ear-risk news

USATODAY adds a few more voices to the growing discussion about what earbuds are doing to ears. The article leads with a family of iPod lovers, the 43-year-old dad of which cranks the music up for hours every day, to drown out power tools at work, to ski to, and to listen while working at his computer. He's "concerned about hearing loss and already experiences ringing in the ears, called tinnitus, which is a symptom of damage. But he says he has no plans to cut back on his MP3 use." It's sustained use at high volumes that audiologists warn against most. "Using earphones for hours at high volumes basically causes 'shock and awe' to delicate hair-like cells deep within the inner ear that help the brain process sound," USATODAY cites one doc as saying, adding that "after years of abuse, those structures won't function anymore." A nice addition is the sidebar, showing the decibel levels of various everyday sounds - e.g., moderate rainfall, 50; conversation, 60; lawnmower, 90; movie theater, 118; earbuds 120 (basically the same as "live music concert" at 120+). The sidebar says anything over 85 exceeds what experts are calling "safe." Apple must be quietly scrambling to find safer, better-designed earbuds.