Worst sound in the world revealed...

A quest to identify the worst noise in the world has ended with top 'honours' going to the sound of someone vomiting.

The year-long online study, which attracted 1.1m votes, ranked microphone feedback as the second worst sound.Crying babies and the scrapes and squeaks of train wheels were joint third, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Some sounds expected to figure highly in the poll, did not do so. Fingernails being dragged down a blackboard came 16th while the dreaded dentist's drill was only 20th.The study, set up by Trevor Cox, a professor of acoustic engineering at Salford University, sought opinions on 34 sounds at the website www.sound101.org.

"From a scientific perspective, we really don't understand why some sounds are so horrible, but our reactions are part of what makes us human," he said. "If, as engineers, we can learn what offends people then, in some cases, we may be able to engineer them out of existence or at least reduce their impact."