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Former president Jimmy Carter, 91, told the New Yorker recently that 90 percent of the arguments he has with Rosalynn, his wife of 70 years, are about hearing. “When I tell her, ‘Please speak more loudly,’ she absolutely refuses to speak more loudly, or to look at me when she talks,” he told the magazine. In response, the former first lady, 88, declared that having to repeat things “drives me up the wall.” Yet after both went to the doctor, much to her surprise, “I found out it was me!” she said. “I was the one who was deaf.” Hearing loss is like that. It comes on gradually, often without an individual’s realizing it, and it prompts a range of social and health consequences. (Cimons, 8/14)

Children with hearing loss who get ear-tube surgery to address chronic ear infections may need tests to see whether their hearing improves, a study suggests. When kids get an infection, fluid can build up in the middle ear, making it difficult for them to hear and potentially impairing speech and language development, said lead study author Kenneth R. Whittemore Jr., a researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital. (8/13)