Why did the bird not cross the road? Noise, it seems, forms at least part of the explanation. Christopher McClure, Jesse Barber and their colleagues at Boise State University in Idaho created a 'phantom road' to test the effects of traffic noise without any actual cars or disruptions in the visual landscape. The authors played continuous traffic sounds through speakers spaced evenly along a 0.5-kilometre ridge for four days, followed by four days of silence. They monitored multiple sites along the fake road and in a control area every morning for 7.5 weeks.
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