The Milano cathedral, pigeons, and ultrasound

The cathedral in the northern Italian city of Milano is worth a visit.

Both tourists and pigeons agree.

With the huge, ornate gates of the building open all day during the height of the tourist season, both kinds of visitors had unfettered access. Which caused problems because tourists, despite what seems like efforts to the contrary are generally cleaner than pigeons.

Plus - but thanks only to the failure of jet pack mass production - tourists don't dump excrement in flight like pigeons, or other birds.

Cleaning up after pigeons is a hideous job, and their feces are corrosive, too. After much ado about droppings, technology rescued the cathedral.

Wire spikes atop of marvelous columns and along ledges were supplemented with ultrasound devices to keep the birds out. Ultrasound is painful to pigeons, annoying enough to motivate them to find a better place.
It works. The flying city dwellers pass by the inviting open doors for less stressing accommodation. Funny how they have no issues with the din of the place, the screeching of trolleys, the honking of horns - this is Italy, my friends.

Every now and then, a bird makes a dash straight for the doors, only to stall and flutter as it reaches the gate, then it will turn away and leave the monument alone. A few droppings at the first set of columns on the inside indicate that some pigeons might be hard of hearing or suffer hearing loss like humans as they get old.

We did not research the maker of the ultrasound gadget, but the socio-economic status of the folks who make it is not in dispute: middle aged males.

Why?

Because the device works also on young humans. Or on humans who, for no particular reason, have a more acute hearing outlasting even the ear shattering techno, rocko, hip hoppo late teens.

What is it like to hear ultrasound, and don't you think it's hilarious that Mrs. A. can call her husband using a dog whistle?

First of, this is only low end ultrasound. The really cool ranges are beyond even super acute human hearing. It feels pretty awful, as the pigeons would tell you. The closest thing we can use to explain it is tinnitus, the so called ringing sound people "hear". Think tinnitus, only a lot worse.

The Wikipedia article on ultrasound also mentions a device called the Mosquito, designed to prevent teens from loitering.

That sums up the Western view of their offspring better than even the sharp tongues TheEditor of the K-landnews could.